In the last sixteen sermons on “Another World”, we have been learning to take our spiritual reality more seriously. Humans are very unique in the way they live both in this physical world and in the spiritual world. If there is reality in this world, there is also reality in another world. The reality in this world is not the same with the reality of the other world. Both realities are real, and it is a fact that we exist in these two different realities: we were created as such beings. It is important to know whether we live accepting or ignoring this fact does not change the fact itself, but only affects the way we live. Usually, we live accepting one reality, ignoring the other, and it is causing us a lot of problems in our lives.

You remember, for instance, what Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman in John 4:

Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:13-14)."

Keep in mind what kind of a problem this woman had, which Jesus figuratively referred to as “this water.” And he suggested her to drink the different type of water in another world—“a spring of water selling up to eternal life.” But she answered:

Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water (v. 15).

The only reality she knew was that of this world, and had no idea what Jesus was talking about—the very reason for her problem. The only thing she could think of, which she thought was close enough to what Jesus was saying, was:

Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem (v. 20).

This concern over whether “on this mountain” or “in Jerusalem” was still about one type of reality only. So Jesus taught her by saying:

Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth (vv. 21-24).

“God is spirit” is a statement that can be understood only through the knowledge of the reality of another world. Furthermore, “the Father” is a being that can be only contemplated when we think of another reality in our relationship that is different from the reality we have with our earthly fathers.

The Bible teaches us that we should live by making our spiritual reality the first priority because what is visible in this world was made out of what was invisible. Problems come when we switch this order of priority to another. Note the following expression that begins with “as”:

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (Eph 5:1-2).