Thief
Rogue Theologian
It's too late to wait until the body dies to 'stand before heaven, this coming up from the body must be realized before bodily death.
The body is like an egg, it contains the spirit 'embryo' that has the potential to be born into spiritual heaven when it is fully developed. However just like the chicken embryo that fails to fully develop inside the egg, if it fails to come out from inside under it's own volition, it will will die inside the egg, so too the 'soul' whose development is not sufficient to realize its true heavenly destiny and leave the body, it will be aborted after the death of the body. (Btw, this is known as the second death as distinct from the first death of the physical body, for this spiritual embryo is made of spiritual vibrational energy which, due to its incomplete development, it can't function in the spiritual domain independently of the bodily womb, it decays over a long period.)
If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. - Luke 9:24 New Living Translation
If anyone has a spiritual eye, let them go forth from their body to behold the Beautiful, let them fly up and float above not seeking to see shape or colour but rather that from which these things are created, that which is quiet and calm, stable and changeless, that which is ONE, that which issues forth from itself and is contained in itself, that which is like nothing else but ITSELF. - A Hermetic Saying
The highlighted portion I disagree with.
Your opportunity to stand before heaven won't happen until you die.
You are on your own til then.
The development you mention can be influenced by the world around you....
unlike the embryo in shell metaphor you were using.
Spirit contained?....yes we are.
Spirit before heaven?.....we will be.