“The Kingdom of Heaven is within you!”, said the Messiah.
If heaven is within us, then hell is also within us. The question present is: Since heaven is not a place, but a state of being, What shall we build within ourselves?
In the Parable of the Prodigal Son we see the son ask for his inheritance, and then go off into the world to make his fortune. That parable revolves around only a few main characters, but let us today expand that parable by joining it with the Parable of the Talents.
In our new parable, we find the wealthy land owner has four children. In this story, we see that three of his children get together to ask the father to divide his lands, and give each one of his children their inheritance now. And so the land owner does.
Now that each child has their inheritance, three of them sell the land deeded to them, taking the monies into the world to improve upon their inheritance. The story of one of the young adults, is all too familiar; wasting his inheritance in riotous living, having only hard lessons to show for it in the end. The second young inheritor also spends a great deal of his money, but buys a little business before the money runs out, and at least can feed himself as he struggles along daily. The third child invests in a good education, apprentices under good instructors, works her way up in the company, attaining stability to raise a family as well. The fourth child, does not sell his land, choosing instead to continue in his father’s footsteps, and taking care of his dad, in his old age. The fourth son works hard, following his dad’s advice implicitly, which allows him to eventually buy back the other portions of land which his siblings sold. As his land holdings grew, the fourth son was soon able to hire back most all the workers, who were so faithful to his father.
Then one day, the father getting old, finds himself longing for his wayward children, sends messengers out to find his children, asking them to come home for a big celebration and reunion.
As each child returns, the father runs as fast as his old legs can carry him, throwing his arms around his children, weeping for joy! He calls to his fourth son’s employees, who already have baths drawn, clothing set out, rooms ready, to come and guide his children through the process.
The fourth child, being very hard at work, returns to find the celebration underway without him. After all he has done for his father, after all the expense, the setting up for this reunion so his dad could enjoy seeing his wayward children again, he was left out.
As the old dad comes out, he explains to his fourth son: Son, I just could not wait. I was so happy to see my wayward children and my grandchildren, I just could not wait.
The fourth child’s heart goes out in compassion for his dad. He realizes he also misses his siblings. And, the father and the son walk back to the house together arm in arm. Along the way, the dad whispers: I think a couple of these guys could use jobs.
Of course, replied the son, happy to bring great joy to his father, and to his beloved siblings.
The parable illustrates the eternal inheritance of each of us, which is represented by the temporal inheritance of the children in the story. Each of the children built their inheritance in a different way, some doing okay, and others not so good. This earth life is the parable, and we are all living through it, striving to improve on our inheritances. The question is now: What do we do to build our eternal inheritances?
Since heaven is within us, so is hell, and we can sure see how much heaven, and/or hell the children built their inheritances into.
The fourth child kept all his dad’s advice and instruction, and prospered exceedingly because of it, thereby gaining the greatest increase in his inheritance. The other siblings listening to various degrees of their dad’s advice had results in direct proportion to their adherence.
This parable shows us that we have already received our inheritance, and will not receive more. It shows us how we are directly responsible for our growth, and that we have not been sent out without instruction of how to build a perfect eternal inheritance.
What is that instruction of how to build a perfect eternal inheritance?
To build joy within ourselves, we are counseled to not hurt anyone. The commandments reveal to us not to hurt anyone. The commandments are a list of rules which teach a person not to harm another. If a person does not harm someone else in some way, there is not regret, nor guilt, nothing to cause a person the grief of building that type of hell within themselves.
The second thing we are instructed to do is to help people, to love people, to express to them all the virtues. This helps us build great joy within ourselves.
As we live those virtues, joy begins to grow within us, happiness being a natural result. This happiness endures, even when bad things are happening all around us, and even to us. These virtues are things which we would expect from Heavenly Father, like: Acceptance; Forgiveness; Love; Patience; Kindness; Charity; Humility; Diligence; Virtue; Knowledge; Wisdom; Temperance; Joy; Peace; Long-suffering; Gentleness; Goodness; Faith; Meekness; Humility; Selflessness; etc. This is how the heaven within us is created!
Once created within us, it devolves upon the servants to go forth and to administer this heaven to others. It is up to us, to go forth and show others the joy found in heaven, by administering these virtues to them: to accept them, to hold nothing against them, to love them, to have patience with them, to show forth kindness to them, administering all the virtues of heaven, as Heavenly Father would do for them. As representatives of our Lord Yeshua Messiah, it is up to us to do the same things Yeshua would do. This is our calling, this is our job. It is our joy to help others, just as Heavenly Father’s joy: To bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
Are we going to be good servants, administering these virtues to others in place of our Lord?
