Heaven Is Not A Place, Its A People

Many Christians view heaven as a destination and if we keep just enough of the commandments, we will get to live there. But heaven is a reflection of who we are, not the other way around. We have to develop ourselves into celestial people first, then we will able to live there.

Transcript

Welcome to the Verbal Motivation podcast. Where we talk about the things that motivate our lives, our religion and our relationships. My name is Nathan Vail. If you would like to comment on this or other episodes, please leave me a voicemail at 530-876-4153. 

This is episode number 11 called Heaven is not a place, it's a people.

There was an interesting T.V. show a few years ago called Clean House. It was a show about a talented crew of interior designers who went out in search of the messiest homes in America. They removed the people from the home, sent them off on a Disneyland vacation and while they were gone, the crew cleaned and remodeled the house. When they had finished, the people were brought back from Disneyland and given a tour. The home owners often cried with joy as they walked through their clean uncluttered home. 

  Every time I watched this show I couldn’t help but think what a waste of time it was. The flawed premise of this show was that the house was the source or the cause of the clutter. I would bet real money that within a month of returning those people to their homes, that it was messy all over again. Because they did not address the source of the problem; the lifestyle of the people who live there. 

If this show wanted to actually accomplish what it claims, it would be called the clean people show. They wouldn’t clean the people’s homes for them because that is not the problem and it would defeat the purpose by enabling them. Instead of sending the home owners to Disneyland, they would be sent to some kind of self-help boot camp, after which they would return to their homes which would become clean as a matter of course because clean people would be living there. Of course that show would never survive, because there is no drama or instant gratification in teaching people to live better. 

 This life on earth is the ultimate clean people show. We were sent here from the preexistence armed with the commandments to learn how to master ourselves and become clean or celestial people; so that we can return to live with our heavenly parents in their clean home. 

The mistake that many of us as Christians make is thinking that heaven is a place, in the sense that we will become clean or celestial as a result of living there. But that is the exact opposite of how it works. To be clear, it is true that the earth will be celestialized and it will be glorious and it will be an actual place for the righteous to inhabit, but my point is that if sinful people are allowed to live there, then it will be no different than what we have right now. It’s not the place that makes heaven what it is, it’s the people who live there.  

Similarly, we only allow members of our Church and even then only those who have met a certain standard of righteous living to enter our temples. Many who are not of our faith wonder what the harm would be in allowing anyone who wants to see it to come inside. What they don’t understand is that the temple is not just a place or beautiful architecture to be admired. It is also a direct reflection of the people who serve there and the work that goes on inside. 

Now it is true that the intentional beauty of the temples show respect for whose house it is and helps promote the environment of reverence that needs to exist there. But to think the temple is just another beautiful building to be toured and photographed, is to completely misunderstand the source of its heavenly presence. 

Let me give you an example. In the aftermath of the 2018 wildfire fire that wiped out the town of Paradise, the San Francisco Giants, in a gesture of incredible kindness, bought the Paradise High School baseball team all new equipment and invited them to play one of their regular baseball games at Oracle Field. A large chartered bus showed up on the morning of the game and drove us all down to San Francisco. The excitement was palpable as the stadium came into view. The kids were guided through the inner halls to a dressing room, interviewed by the team's media crew and treated like sports stars for a day. I’ll never forget watching my son pitch from the same mound where many of the greatest players of all time have pitched. It was an experience that will live in my memory forever. 

But while watching my son’s team play on that hallowed field, I had an interesting thought…playing on that field as if they were sports stars didn't actually change them into world class players nor did they suddenly take on higher athletic ability as a result of the celebrity that seemed to exist around them that day. Imagine if rather than playing against another high school team, they were made to play against the San Francisco Giants with the world watching, as if the were a professional team. It would have been immediately obvious that they did not belong there. Every pitch would likely have resulted in a home run. If our team ever got up to bat, every one of them would likely have struck out. In the end, playing against a team so superior would have been embarrassing to the point that they would not have wanted to stay there. 

I think everyone would agree that the reason Oracle Field or Fenway Park are iconic is because of the people who play there. If we let random people play in professional sports, it would no longer be fun to watch and the general interest in the game would decline if not cease to exist all together. Just holding the games at a famous location would not make it a better game or draw interest.

In a similar way, the temple draws its unique environment from the people that attend there and the work that goes on, not the location or its beautiful architecture. The same will hold true in the next life on a celestialized earth.

Moses 6:57 says, “Wherefore teach it unto your children, that all men, everywhere, must repent, or they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God, for no unclean thing can dwell there, or dwell in his presence;

The fact that only the righteous will be granted entrance to heaven or even his temples, is not a reflection of the Lord’s love for us. The San Francisco Giants showed a lot of love for my son’s team that day, but that love does not make them worthy to compete on that field. And if for love’s sake random people were allowed to play against professional teams, it would change the reputation of the field and tarnish the game. In truth, my son's team would not want to play with a superior professional team based solely on love rather than their talent as baseball players. 

More than any other branch of the military, the Marines have mastered the art of advertising. When I was younger I wanted nothing more than to be a Marine. The idea of honor and brotherhood in arms was very enticing to me. I once saw a sign on the front door of the Marine recruiting office that said, “you don’t join the marines, you become one.” Implying, of course, that when you are granted the title of Marine, you will have first become a different person, as a result of the training you endure. 

I think in Christianity we could say that “you don’t join The Church of Jesus Christ, you become a disciple.” Just saying his name, attending church or associating with him through symbolism doesn’t make us Christians, any more than wearing Nike shoes makes you an heir to their fortune.

Consider this bumper sticker I saw the other day, it said, “If going to church makes you a Christian, does going into the garage make you a car?”

A friend of mine named Jeanette gave a talk one Sunday and perfectly encapsulated what I am talking about with one simple line, “If you want to go to heaven,” she said, “you have to take it with you”

That is the whole gospel right there. We are not will not be some heaven placement program in the next life that will pick for us our proper location in the celestial realms. Who we become in this life is the arbiter of our heavenly placement.

A few years ago I went to a woman’s home to do an evaluation and as soon as I stepped through the door I was taken aback by the enormous amount of junk that was stacked everywhere. There was a path just wide enough to walk from one room to the next, but nowhere to sit down. You could tell where the kitchen was because there was just enough space to use one side of the sink, but no stove or microwave was visible. It was like in the desert, the way sand covers anything that doesn’t move. 

As we slowly navigated through the house, she kept saying over and over that the reason the place looked so bad was because she had been robbed. In a very frustrated and passionate voice, she told me that the police wouldn't take her seriously because she can’t tell them what was taken. 

I stood there listening to her making excuses for why her home looked the way it did, thinking to myself that she has gotten so used to the mess that she did seem to see it anymore. She had no self awareness or concept of the fact that her house was unlivable.

In a spiritual sense we also develop clutter in our lives through bad habits and in a similar way we become so used to them we simply don’t see them anymore or develop an emotional attachment to them. 

When I worked at the Feather River Temple open house, I came home with incredible back pain. The reason is because there are mirrors everywhere and every time I passed one I realized that I wasn’t standing up straight. Apparently my normal posture is bad enough that standing up straight all day is very difficult on my back muscles. But I would never have noticed that without those mirrors. 

The purpose of places like the temple and weekly church attendance is to help us see the spiritual clutter and bad spiritual posters, if you will, that are preventing us from developing the celestial nature that lives in each one of us as children of God. 

I had a fascinating experience one day when I thought I was having that same hoarders experience again at a different gentleman’s home. At first, it appeared to be the same cluttered mess that I had seen before. Stacks of junk completely filled the house. But as I walked his narrow path through the house, I began to notice that everything stacked floor to ceiling was brand new and even expensive. This gentleman was a lawyer by profession and he told me that he had purchased some kind of insurance that guaranteed his salary forever, if he ever became disabled; which he did. He is unable to work; so, he sits at home, drawing a healthy salary and buying things online all day. Everytime I went to his house there were stacks of unopened boxes on one side of the front porch that had arrived from online retailers, and a stack of flattened boxes on the other. It somehow wasn’t gross like the first lady's house because it was all brand new stuff…but the effect was exactly the same. He had no use of his home, he couldn't have a guest because there was nowhere to sit other than on his bed and he got no enjoyment from his home or the things that overcrowded it. 

My point is that if we have habits that are deplorable or if we have habits that are accepted and even celebrated by society, they are still bad habits. Anything that prevents us from progressing spiritually, is just clutter.

I love the story of David and Goliath. When he was young he tended sheep. A dangerous job as it turns out. He once chased down a Lion that had taken one of his sheep, killed the Lion and took his lamb out of its mouth. 

Unfortunately, we often miss the main point when telling the story of David killing Goliath, as an isolated instance. As if David was sitting around on a hillside working his thumbs on a Playstation when he heard Goliath calling out a challenge to all of Israel and on the battlefield that day David became a great warrior. 

In truth, Goliath was the last in a long line of fierce beasts that David had slain in his life. Each one giving him greater strength and confidence.

It is worth considering how this mega hero who battled wild beasts and slew Goliath, ended up an adulterer and ultimately arranged the murder of his lover’s husband.  

I think it is because in the run up to Goliath, he was constantly building and sharpening his skills through the challenges of protecting his flock. He was at the top of his game that day on the battlefield. But after he became a king, I can only imagine that his every need was attended to. He probably let down his guard a little and slowly developed some bad habits while entertaining dignitaries and enjoying the finer things in life. Thus, in the run up to Bathsheba it seems likely that he was spiritually out of shape and unprepared for the temptation. 

When I was younger I had some meager artistic skills. My dad asked me to draw a poster for a class he was teaching. It showed David drawing back, muscles rippling and confident about to cast the stone that would kill Goliath. Behind Golitath there was an image of Bethsheba. The caption read, “If David only knew who his real Goliath would be.”

I used to hate the first couple of weeks of January at my local gym. All the equipment was jammed up with people that I knew would be gone by February. 

It is a fascinating phenomenon, why don’t our New Year’s resolutions last? I think it is because every January it’s like we are figuratively placing ourselves into a clean year and expecting that New Year to magically make us better people. That can’t and obviously doesn’t work, because the calendar is not the source of our shortcomings and therefore it has no power to change them. It’s the habits that have slowly formed over the years that have caused the accumulation of clutter in our lives. If we could just walk away from them one day because of the date on a calendar, they wouldn't be called habits. 

In the most recent conference President Nelson challenged us to “think celestial.” I love that phrase, because it is not a demeaning or judgemental restriction on what we can or shouldn’t do, it is an invitation to think differently. If we change our attitude, it will in turn change our actions, which will in turn make us better people. That is an inside-out kind of change, rather than an external circumstance that will magically bring about a different person.

Norman Vincent Peale once said, “you’ll never be what you want to be unless you know what you want to be.” In other words, there is no harm in setting goals. But the power to accomplish them comes from our attitude and who we want to be in our lives, not a date on the calendar. 

Unlike in sports where there are many who put in the work but simply do not have the talent to become professional players, every one of us is a child of God and it is our birthright to become celestial beings, but we have to first decide that that is what we want to do and that will motivate us to put in the lifelong work of removing clutter. 

And just like the city of Enoch…we can create heaven right now, in our own homes, by setting aside this idea that heaven is a destination and embracing the fact that the journey there is what will make us into celestial people.

My name is Nathan Vail and this is the Verbal Motivation Podcast.