Are we "seeing straight?"

As an English-speaking person of faith, I've got to wonder: do my grammatical predispositions have an impact on my spiritual patterns? Is my ability to store up treasures in heaven impeded by my three separate views of of the past, present and future?

Yesterday, God so loved the world, today God is so loving the world and tomorrow God will so love the world. But God is timeless; the great I am. To God yesterday, today and tomorrow are all mysteriously part of the eternal now. While it's true that I now live within the finite confines of time, the Bible teaches me that I am also an infinite being - that an embodied me will go on forever. As will this world we're living on. According to the Bible, heaven isn't going to be some future place that is wholly different from this place. It will be this world made new.

So then, does our language betray us when we're forced to parse time the way we do? Right now, we're made new in Christ. Before we were even born God had us in mind. For eternity He will have us in mind. There's something about stating these truths in the past, present and future that's good; that illumines and enlarges our view of God.

But now I wonder if my future tense is also subtly and subconsciously keeping my ultimate union with God at a distance. A light just went on in you didn't it!? When I separate the future from the now (and the past) do I push it too far away, distance myself and then "treat it as if it's something different?” And in doing this, do my preparations for the future fall short? Is this why I said "I'll get my act together when I get older". "It’ll be a while before I meet God face to face". I need to see that guy about a property, buy that one last thing, work on my marriage". Then I'll get serious about all those God things.

But if the future is now, if our future God is with us now, then EVERYTHING CHANGES, doesn't it? Now is then. God is future present. Everything I do or don't do now is part of then, and the future is more present than it’s ever been.

Wow! Living spiritually in the future, present, and past changes our view and improves our decision making. I know, your wanting to ask me "How can I possibly live in three separate time frames?" Well, my friend, it's far easier that you think. The answer is to see yourself as God sees you and live your life in that reality.

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called the
Children of God. And that is what we are”. I John 3:1

“So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being
rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to
grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ”. Eph. 3:17-18

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come! All
this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ…” II Cor 5:17-18

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God". II Cor 5:21

also see Romans 8: 1-39