Ahne Dumalo
One of the amazing things that separates YAHWEH, the Christian and one true God, from others is the answer to this question. Where in Islam, the God they serve stays in heaven and is always separated from his people. The God of the Holy Bible can relate to his people. The reason he can relate to his people is that he came down from heaven and lived with them. He understands all that we go through and all that we could ever face. Jesus is the human manifestation of the Father. When people sign the song, what if God was one of us, all they have to do is look to Jesus to see the answer to that question. When people ask whether you think God stays in heaven. The answer is no let’s explore why that is.
Do You Think God Stays in Heaven?
Most people see it as wise for God to stay in heaven. It would be like a wealthy person going into the world without their massive security details. It’s reported that Mark Zuckerberg spends more than $20 million dollars on security. You would think God would stay in heaven for the same reason. He is not vulnerable up in heaven, it’s like a rich person being in an expensive fortress. But God is the ultimate warrior, the ultimate protector of the world, and he does not have anything to fear. Guns, weapons, insults, none of them change or bother him.
Here is the thing, and this is the beauty of the Gospel. God loved you so much that he did not just sit in heaven but sent his son and the firstborn of all creation to earth. But why would he do that? He did it because of his love for the world. His love is not represented by a feeling that is fleeting. Instead, his love is represented by sacrifice and the fact that his son gave up his life because he loved you and I so much. Whereas in many other religions, God stays far away, and God can never say he understands what people go through.
For the Christian, Jesus drew near to us and was both man and God at the same time. He suffered like us and can totally understand your tears. He can understand your temptation. There is nothing that you will go through that Jesus cannot understand.
What Would Happen if God Stayed in Heaven?
If God stayed in heaven, it means that there would be none capable of taking on the sins of the world. God has made it clear that the wages of sin are death. Meaning that sin has to lead to death, and there can be no other way. If there is another way, then Jesus would have never gone up on the cross because he asked for that. The only person who could take on sin is God himself. No one else could do it because everyone else has sinned in their life. To be the perfect sacrifice, you have to be without blemish.
If God stayed in heaven, we would be on the hook for our sins. We could not have our sins forgiven because there would be nothing to atone for our sins. We would not know God as we do now because the word would have never become flesh like Jesus Christ. Jesus answered the question what if God was one of us? Everything he did was in submission to the Father so that we all could understand the nature of God better.
How Do We Respond To This?
When people ask do you think God stays in heaven, and they realize that he didn’t, the next question should be how do we respond? The only way to respond to this is to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. Think about this, if God loves you so much, he will leave his throne and come to earth to suffer for you; what else is worth loving? Would your boss do that for you? Would your boss give up their job and their whole life so you can thrive? You can bet that they won’t, and that is not coming from one who is perfect.
God owes you and me nothing, yet he was willing to give up his entire life so that you and I could have life in him. To repent is to recognize that you are rejecting God and turn to him. The reason why it takes confessing Jesus as Lord to be saved is that its not from the work that we do but from the work of Christ. In our society obsessed with grinding and earning it on your own, that is a hard concept to grasp. How can you earn the love of God without work when so many people can barely earn their parent’s love without work? It is this very thing that makes the love of God so powerful.
Do You Think God Stays in Heaven? Don’t Forget his Spirit
When Jesus ascended back to the Father’s right hand, he promised that the helper would come. We see in Acts 2 that the helper leads us to be like Jesus through guidance, conviction, and many other things. God is not just a random old guy in the clouds, as people try to say disrespectfully. He actually dwells with us, which is why 1 Cor 6 talks about our bodies being temples. We are temples because God dwells within us.
God not only came down through his son Jesus but he also sent his Spirit. The same Spirit that was present in Genesis 1 and the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. The Spirit of God left heaven and came here to help those who call on the name of Jesus. God has made an active decision not just to dwell in heaven away from His.
He is the one true God, and one of the things that makes him special is the fact that he draws near. At the same time, other Gods want to stay far away and want you to focus on their power on might. The God of the Bible is mighty and powerful, but he also knows how to draw near and be gentle and lowly.
