“Heaven is not located on high, but where the good of love is, and this resides within a person, wherever he or she might be.” –Secrets of Heaven §8153
Throughout human history people have asked, “Where is Heaven?” Many still imagine it to be a distant paradise—a reward after death for a life well lived. And yet our Lord Jesus Christ said something radically different. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21) (2)
This is not mere metaphor—it’s the deepest spiritual reality, present all around us and within us. Swedenborg confirms that Heaven is not far above the clouds, but a living, feelingful, spiritual presence wherever love and truth are cherished and practiced. Heaven can begin in the quiet of your own heart, in a gentle word to someone in need, in choosing to approach another person out of compassion for who they are and with a desire to be supportive of them as a child of God, or in the courage to choose honesty over comfort. Let me say that one again…or in the courage to choose honesty over comfort—being willing to open up with emotional and spiritual vulnerability, taking a friendship or a longer-term relationship to deeper levels of love together, relating about deeper issues and concerns where heavenly listening and responding thrive.
Heaven as a State of Being
Heaven is not primarily a location—it’s a spiritual condition, made real when we act from love, especially when loving others is hard. Micah offers this beautifully practical wisdom: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good…to do justice, to love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) (3)
We don’t drift into spiritual maturity any more than a garden grows without care. A flourishing garden needs watering, weeding, and sunlight. Spiritually and correspondentially, this means watering our thoughts with the cleansing truths found in God’s Word. It also means weeding out harmful patterns in our lives, which can stifle freshly budding spiritual moments and discussions yearning to sprout into new ways of being, thinking and communication. Enabling our deep, internal spiritual gardens of lifefulness within us means creating patterns of living that are intrinsically yearning to receive God’s inflowing warmth, energy and lifefulness of Divine love.
The Marriage of Love and Truth
In Swedenborgian thought, love is the very life-force of Heaven—in fact it is God’s own essence. Truth is the form that love takes when made wise. Without truth, love becomes misguided; without love, truth grows cold. When the two are united in our life, Heaven is born within us again and again and again—throughout our regenerational salvation on Earth, guiding us into our highest spiritual potential, which God intends us to grow into every day.
How We Wound Heaven Within
Yet we all know how easy it is to harm the goodness God plants in us and plans for us. We may wound it through selfishness, unbridled anger, gossip, neglecting each other’s basic needs, pride, or fear. These small injuries—like rolling our eyes at someone’s need, holding grudges, ignoring injustice—are tiny tears in Heaven’s fabric within us. One of my favorite spiritual one-liners that my beloved Grandma Gwen Billings said one day when we were having one of our fabulous spiritual discussions came out when we were discussing our unique and important Swedenborgian teaching about how it is that people ultimately wind up going into Heaven or into Hell after death. In New Church thinking, we do not teach that God chooses where each person goes through some kind of heavy-handed, top-down, judgmental trial. Instead, as my Grandma Gwen put it, “The only way anyone winds up in Heaven or in Hell after death is by gradually choosing either one a little bit, every day.” She paraphrased this statement then by saying, “The road paved into Hell is freely chosen gradually.” And likewise, the road paved towards and into Heaven happens here, right now, every day—gradually, as well.
The very wise writer of Proverbs 4 says it much more poetically. Now listen again to his words a second time:
“Keep vigilant watch over your heart;
that’s where life starts.
Don’t talk out of both sides of your mouth;
avoid careless banter, white lies, and gossip.
Keep your eyes straight ahead;
ignore all sideshow distractions.
Watch your step,
and the road will stretch out smooth before you.
Look neither right nor left;
leave evil in the dust.” (4)
The Healing of Jacob DeShazer
One striking example of Heaven’s restoration inside of a person’s consciousness comes from the life of Jacob DeShazer, a U.S. airman in World War II. Captured by the Japanese after the Doolittle Raid at the beginning of our war with Japan following their horrifying bombing at Pearl Harbor, he endured years of brutal imprisonment. Consumed by hatred, he stumbled upon a Bible in prison and began reading it. The teachings of Jesus Christ transformed his heart, leading him to forgive his captors completely. After the war, Jacob returned to Japan as a missionary—befriending and even baptizing some of the Japanese soldiers who had once guarded him (DeShazer, I Was a Prisoner of Japan, 1950). His choice to nurture love over vengeance became a living testimony to many, that Heaven dwells wherever forgiveness and mercy are chosen.
Nurturing the Good of Heaven
Here are four suggestions I have for you to enhance your own personal nurturing of the good of Heaven in your daily life:
1. Live in spiritual wakefulness. Pay attention to what you’re practicing each day. Are you choosing kindness or nursing grievances? Speaking truth from love, or avoiding it?
2. Practice mercy and justice. Love is not vague sentimentality—it’s firm, graceful action that blesses others. Wise loving is brave, useful, and growth-inspiring.
3. Protect the goodness in others. See the spark of Heaven in each person and speak to it—help it and nurture it. Love and support the goodness in others and in yourself. Jesus said, “But seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Mtt. 6:33)
4. Return through repentance. Repentance is not shame but a turning toward God’s good. Each return we make every day, gradually and daily choosing the road into Heaven now, helping God pave our way through the narrow way, expands Heaven in the soul.
Conclusion – Keepers of the Good
The world may say Heaven is far away, but the Lord says it is near—so near that it can take root in our hearts, words, habits, and daily actions.
So, ask yourself: What part of Heaven am I nurturing within me right now? Where might I be wounding the good, knowingly or unknowingly? And if I am, now is the time to stop doing so, and to repent and reform my life, and allow God to regenerate my heart and mind into the very loving and wise servant I was born to be.
(1) Swedenborg, Emanuel. Secrets of Heaven. West Chester: Swedenborg Foundation, 2022.
2) Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
(3) Ibid.
(4) Ibid.
Rev. Kit Billings, his wife Penny, and their daughter Julia moved to LaPorte, Indiana in 2012, where he is Pastor of the LaPorte New Church, a historic Swedenborgian sacred space. Kit enjoys ministering with people of all ages, and supporting others in their journey of growth with the Lord.