When you think of heaven what thoughts come to mind? I know for me I echo the thoughts of Pastor John MacArthur who once shared: “Scripture repeatedly makes clear that heaven is a realm of unsurpassed joy, unfading glory, undiminished bliss, unlimited delights, and unending pleasures. Nothing about it can possibly be boring or humdrum. It will be a perfect existence. We will have unbroken fellowship with all heaven’s inhabitants. Life there will be devoid of any sorrows, cares, tear, fears, or pain.”1
And as much as I enjoy living in a free country like America I am really looking forward to the mansion that God is preparing for me. I love what we read in (John 14:1-3 KJV): “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” I like how Jonathan Edwards puts it: “To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here.”2
Another thing about heaven that really excites me is the fact that my 70 year-old body, that is beginning to experience a host of random aches and pains, will experience in heaven the ultimate in rejuvenation. Evangelist Dwight L. Moody colorfully illustrated this point when he remarked: “Some day you will read in the papers that D.L. Moody of East Northfield, is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now; I shall have gone up higher, that is all, out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal – a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint; a body fashioned like unto His glorious body.”3
One other observation concerns the accusation that we Christians spend too much time thinking and dreaming of heaven, so much so, that we become so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good. On this point John MacArthur is exactly right when he says: “We don’t seek to escape this life by dreaming of heaven. But we do find we can endure this life because of the certainty of heaven. Heaven is eternal. Earth is temporal. Those who fix all their affections on the fleeting things of this world are the real escapists, because they are vainly attempting to avoid facing eternity – by hiding in the fleeting shadows of things that are only transient.”4 Not only that but Scripture tells us in clear terms that we are to set our hearts and minds on heaven, for we read in (Colossians 3:1-2): “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”
My friends heaven is a real place and if the Bible tells me to set my heart and mind on heaven who am I to argue with God!
1 138 Quotes About Heaven | ChristianQuotes.info
2 138 Quotes About Heaven | ChristianQuotes.info