Formed for the Glory of God: Learning from the Spiritual Practices of Jonathan Edwards

by Kyle Strobel

To journey well in this life, it is important to meditate on the direction your heart is pointing. What realm serves as the true north to which your heart finds its bearings? To live a heavenly life now, one must “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Col 3:2). The “things that are above” do not primarily reference a place, but the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—the triune God. We must turn our attention to the source of the heavenly life so we can live the “way of heaven” here. To do so, I focus our attention on being with God in glory. Heaven is only heavenly because God is there. He is the spring of love that gives life and direction to that place. The life we know now is still given direction by that same source of life and love. God is the only source of the heavenly life, and therefore to grasp the nature of the Christian life we must grasp what it means to know God.