What if ... This is Heaven?

What have you learned about life?
I know that we're all still working things out, but are there things that you've already concluded that these things are true and we need to accept it as true?
What are the questions you struggle with today?

Even as I struggle with an aging physical body, I am learning that life is much more than the physical world. But as I grow in the spiritual realm, I am learning how taking care of the natural (physical) world is becoming more important. The daily awareness that we live in both worlds is both exhilarating and a little frightening -- not frightening in a scary way, just frightening in a new perspective sort of way.

For most of my life I've kept the two worlds compartmentalized. When dealing with the spiritual world, it was generally in an afterlife kind of way -- e.g. What happens when you die?
Consequences of decisions in the physical world seem to manifest themselves in rather predictable, physical ways, but we often seem to ignore or remain unaware of the potential consequences of spiritual decisions and non-decisions. When we think of those consequences as post-life, we can only guess what they might be. Religious leaders seem to have an inside track on post-life consequences and often use fear as a motivator to inspire some sort of current physical behavior or response.
Apparently good physical behavior = spiritual reward.

What if it isn't about reward?
What if God isn't dangling a carrot (or a crown) for us?
What if we already possess a spiritual crown? (We are created in the image of God, right?)
What if becoming more aware of God, our own spiritual being, and the other spiritual beings around us is enough to change our physical behavior?
Spiritual reward (awareness) = good physical behavior.

What if ... ?

What if when Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand," he meant that we can experience heaven right now?
What if we don't have to die to experience heaven?
What if it is possible to live in the physical world and the spiritual world of heaven at the same time?

What if Jesus has accomplished everything necessary for us to have heaven and the only thing that is keeping us from experiencing heaven right now is our lack of awareness of being in the presence of God?
What if the very moment that we begin to see God in the people and in the world around us is the moment we experience salvation and become aware that this is heaven; that the kingdom of heaven is here?

What if ... ?

John