In life we often look forward to the next thing and dream of the day we achieve true happiness. We all have things we want, but what if everything we’ve ever longed for was a longing for Heaven and to be with God.
In this blog I will go over a message I recently heard at The Porch in Dallas, Texas a Tuesday night service for young adults through the Watermark Church. The sermon brought about a question, that for some, can be very difficult to answer honestly. When do you want to go to Heaven?
Think about that for a minute… are you ready to go to Heaven today? Or in your mind are you thinking “oh but I still want to do this, or I still have this on my bucket list to do before I die” are you thinking “I will be ready to go to Heaven when I am on my death bed in 60 years”.
If we understood what awaits us in Heaven and for eternity, we wouldn’t be able to wait to get there. If we truly knew and understood what was ahead of us and the paradise that awaits us, you wouldn’t have to think about your answer to the above question. The answer would be immediate, I want to go now, this is what I have been waiting for my entire life, to be in Heaven.
In the book of Revelation, the only prophetic book in the new testament, meaning it is telling you of the future not of the past. It is telling the story of a prophecy that John received from an Angel of God. In Revelation 21:22 it states “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away”. The earth as we know it is no more, the world we live in is a world of sin, a world of pain, fear, anxiety, and hurt. This earth will cease to exist. It will be replaced with a new earth. The new earth will have no sea. Small fact, 97% of the water on this earth is undrinkable, it has too much salt in it to safely consume. The sea, while providing life to sea animals, provides no support to human life, it only separates us. The sea serves as a barrier.
During the Porch service we went through three questions.
- What is Heaven like?
- Who will spend eternity in Heaven?
- What will we do in Heaven?
So, what is Heaven like?
Heaven is earth 2.0, it is a new heaven and a new earth, this earth resurrected and made new. The earth will be like it was intended from the beginning in the garden of Eden. Creation as we know it, the trees, animals, insects, the grass, everything in creation longs to be set free from the bondage that was created from sin. There is going to come a day where everything is going to be set free in Heaven. God will “wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore”.
Does this change the way you think about Heaven, about the way you want to live your life? Think about it, you don’t have to have a bucket list, just a list. Whether you do it in this life or another, you can do anything you have ever wanted to do. The only thing you can do in this life, that you can’t do in the other life (Heaven), is spread the word of God. Isn’t it crazy to think that this isn’t our destination? We are not where we belong, not even close. Think of it this way, imagine you are at the airport, or of a time you were at the airport. Everyone has one thing in common at an airport, they don’t want to be there. You go to the airport to get to a destination not to be at the airport. No matter who is at the airport they are not at their final destination. That’s what the bible says this earth is like. It is a place that is not your final destination. This is not the place we will spend our lives forever, for all of eternity.
Are you excited for Heaven? I am, there will be no more pain, no more suffering, no more cancer or sickness, no more crime or hate. The first thing that God does when you come into Heaven is not point out what you did wrong, what you didn’t do to glorify his name. The first thing He does is “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes”. Like a father wiping the tears of his children. The same hands that were crucified on the cross, wipe the tears from your eyes. In Psalm 16 is states “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”. This is where it is hard to understand, to fully grasp what we will experience in Heaven. We will experience pleasures forever, fullness of joy forever. The only joys or pleasures we know are pleasures of this world, a world of sin. We do not have a category for the eternity where everything is healed, and everything is right. We only have the pleasures of this world to try and explain it.
It is like trying to explain the pleasures of sex to a five-year-old whose favorite thing in this entire world is chocolate. Trying to explain the height of human pleasure of sex, marriage, and intimacy to a five-year-old. They wouldn’t be able to comprehend it. They would have not a category for it, they wouldn’t be able to imagine a pleasure better than that of chocolate. The bible teaches that it is beyond anyone’s imagination, we will never be able to comprehend what awaits us in Heaven, on the new earth.
Revelation 21:1-4 “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
So, you and I get to experience Heaven, we get to experience paradise, as well as a select group of people. But only a particular group of people will experience Heaven which brings us to the second question.
Who will spend eternity with God?
- Those who are thirsty for God
- Those who put their trust in Jesus
- Those who accept freely
- Those who know they need a savior
- Those who know that God is their savior
- Those who are victorious
In the book of Revelation, he uses this word many times and gives us the definition in 1 John 5:5 “Who is it that overcomes (or is victorious- same word) the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.” What does it mean to be victorious, it means that you had accepted Jesus as the Son of God, that is the person that overcomes, that is the person who spends eternity with God.
- Those whose names are written in the Lambs book of life
- Revelation 21:27 “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lambs book of life”.
What does it mean to have your name in the Lambs book of life?
That you have accepted God as your Lord and Savior. That you have made a declaration that you are a follower of Jesus Christ. It is a confession of your faith in, and commitment to, Jesus Christ. God’s last moments on planet Earth, when he was nailed to the cross, was in between two criminals, two thieves’, murders, adulterers, who knows what they had done. That’s the kind of men God was crucified with, the son of all perfect righteousness. It was in that moment that one of the criminals asked God for a favor. He told God I have spent my whole life running from you, he had done things that were unforgivable, and he looks at the Son of God and asks, will you remember me? He was thirsty, and Jesus said to him, what he would say to you or anyone who acknowledges that they are unworthy, will you remember me?
Jesus says Today, you will be with me in paradise, you will be with me because of nothing that you did, despite everything wrong that you did, but the fact that you were simply thirsty. This criminal, one who had done unspeakable things, was forgiven for simply being thirsty for Jesus Christ. He acknowledged his need, all that you need is need to be a Christian, that’s the message of Christianity.
Then he tells us who won’t be there. Those who haven’t put their faith in Jesus, the cowardly, the unbelieving. Anyone who is not trusted in Jesus.
Those who will be there is whose name is written in the Lambs book of Life. How crazy is it to think that there is a book up there that when a person accepts God as their savior, the acknowledge their need for him and give themselves to him fully, their name is written in the Lambs book of Life. If it is not written in there, they are not getting in.
Are their harps, do you fly, is it whatever you want it to be. Well it tells you in Revelation 22:1-
‘’The angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more light. They will not need the light of the lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God who inspires the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place.”
So, what will we do in Heaven? We will work and worship. We will worship God and in some way we will work for God. But it won’t be like the work in this life. The work in this life is a result of sin, with anxiety, stress, bad leaders, etc. God is going to allow us to experience work that brings us joy, that we will love doing. The work that he designed for you to do for all of eternity. He will assign you work that brings you life, that will not be boring. Heaven is not a place that is boring, in Heaven every moment will be better than the one before it. God did not create you for insignificant things. God created you to rule and reign with him forever, that what he sees in his children, that is what he sees in you. What are we going to do in Heaven? We are going to work, and we are going to worship. The way that you live in life will be worshiping God. Worship is not only music, it is the way that you and I live our life for all of eternity. In this life ways we can worship are through our relationships, our thoughts, and our actions. When we see God, everything is going to change.
Now the original question, do you want to go to Heaven? If we were being honest with ourselves are you ready to go to Heaven right now? For those of you who aren’t sure, I don’t think that you have ever wanted anything else. I think that the deepest feeling you have ever experienced is a longing to be with God, you have been homesick for God, for his love, for his grace, for him to be your savior. In this life every pain, every longing, every desire that you have ever had is being homesick. Ultimately these desires can only be fulfilled in Heaven, in God. You were born with a desire that was placed inside of you heart, your desire to be home, a desire that can only come in the arms of your Savior. Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that he put desire in every person’s heart, so that the longing, the desire will never go away so that you will long to be home. You are not home yet but you will be if you trust in Jesus, if you accept you thirst for God.
God has already extended his invitation that he is going to accept you, the question is will you accept him?
