Looking Forward to Heaven

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“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.You know the way to the place where I am going.” (John 14:1-4)

“If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:29)

Christmas is the time of the year where we remember Christ’s birth. The birth of baby Jesus marks the initiation of God’s plan to redeem his people. We celebrate this time, because it marks the arrival of the Son of God who came specifically to save us from our sins and through his sacrificial death paved the way for us to be re-united with our creator (John 3:16-17).

Heaven is the name we give to that place where we will dwell with God for eternity, it is the end result we hope to achieve by coming to Christ and living our lives in dedication to his service (Philippians 1:21-23).

Understanding a bit more about this place called Heaven provides an inspiration and a motivation to live life more like Christ and to take the opportunity to do the godly thing when ungodly choices abound. So let’s look more closely at what Heaven is and how the concept of Heaven can motivate us and help us to be more effective in our Christian walk.

We may not realise it but all of us already have significant personal connections to Heaven. This is through Christ our Saviour who has gone there to prepare for our arrival, but we also have connections to Heaven through the people we know who are already there. Friends, relatives, and loved ones who are already enjoying the rewards the Father has set aside for them. Many of these people we don’t even know because they lived and died before our own time.

Knowing that our loved ones and good friends, people we admire and look up to are already in Heaven and that we will see them again when we are called home to our Maker is a reminder of the great destiny we have in front of us. This connection to our loved ones affirms to us the reality of Heaven, it reminds us of the profound fact that there is life after death and that there are eternal and priceless benefits in choosing to live our earthly lives through Jesus Christ.

Heaven is our ultimate home and our entry through the gates of Heaven will be a homecoming for us, and a great and glorious homecoming at that (2 Corinthians 5:1-10). The home of our Creator and our Saviour, it is a place Christ is preparing for all of us, that means that in Heaven we will find things that are tailored to own individual needs, interests, and even to our own desires. Our Maker knows the very depth of our being and he has a perfect knowledge of who we are and what it is that fulfils us; God has commissioned his Son to put that knowledge to use in the creation of a place that has a divinely crafted lodging for us as individuals (John 14:1-4). You see Heaven is both a place of joint celebration and communion, but it is also a place where every individual matters and where each individual is valued for who they are, for their own unique God given personality.

In Heaven there is no sin, it is untainted by the intervention of evil and because of that there will be no embarrassment or shame… some of us need to start living that now! Some of us are putting off our interests our desires, because we are embarrassed or even ashamed. That’s not how God wants us to be. In Heaven we will see the perfection of relationships and a result of that is that we will not need to put on a show for others or to avoid exploring our interests because of what others might think. We will be accepted for who we are, not just by God, but by each other. Judgmental attitudes are left behind when we enter into the perfected creation of Heaven.

The very notion of Heaven contains within it the substance of things hoped for, the fulfilling of the unconscious needs we have (Hebrews 11:1, for this interpretation see especially the King James Version). Heaven achieves this primarily by providing a place where we can be rejoined to our Creator, but it also does this by bringing us into perfect relationship with other people and God’s amazing creation. 

As we grow closer to God and our relationships with him deepen Heaven becomes more real to us as we go through this mortal life. It becomes a greater possibility, in our thinking it moves from a desire to something we are certain of, that is, it moves from a hopeful, but abstract, dream to a concrete reality. In this process our focus shifts and we begin to look towards the longer term, the future that exists beyond this world. This motivates us to look at what we are doing in our daily lives and begin to try and ensure that we are doing things of lasting value which build the kingdom of Heaven. It is important to realize though that just as our home in Heaven is being personalized for us as individuals, so also our efforts to build the kingdom of Heaven should be personalized according to our uniqueness. God gave us all unique talents and skills and those are the ones we need to use to further the kingdom of Heaven, not the ones belonging to someone else. God places no greater value on one skill over the other. Mary gave birth to Jesus, Joseph provided the safety of the family unit in a conservative ancient society, and James, the brother of Jesus, guided the church after Jesus’s death and ascension to Heaven. Neither Mary, Joseph or James were more important members of Christ’s early family than the other, all were essential to building the kingdom and they all did it in their own way, using their own gifts and talents.

Seeing Heaven as our ultimate destination allows us to look outside of our troubles, to see beyond our current hardships and endure, to persevere, so we can follow the Apostle Paul’s example and run the race to receive the prize that is set before us (1 Corinthians 9:24-27 and Philippians 3:14).

Our eternity in Heaven has been secured by the sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross. If we have accepted Christ into our lives then it cannot be taken from us. The Devil and his minions will try to convince us otherwise, but we must remember that we are heirs according to the promise of God.

Heaven is real, Heaven is near, and Heaven is our home. What a glorious day it will be when we return to our Creator, our Savior, when we are reunited with our loved ones and enter our purpose built home that our Lord Jesus Christ has prepared for us (Galatians 3:29).