Through 25 chapters in his book, In light of eternity: perspectives on heaven, Randy Alcorn talks about heaven and he tries to make sure we are prepared for it. His prayer is that God “would use this book to do a miracle of grace.” He wants readers to “Break through the lies of the evil ones who incessantly try to malign and minimize the glorious nature of our home in heaven.” Further, he claims that “The greatest weakness of the western church today is arguably the failure to think of the long tomorrow—to take seriously the reality that heaven is our home.”
Alcorn says that “In heaven we’ll be at home with our Christian ancestors and, eventually, our descendants.” But what is it about the word “home” for heaven that makes it so appealing to many of us? Home is where we grew up and had various friends and enjoyable experiences. We had food and friends, laughter, and even some pain. However, I don’t want to go back to the home or community where I lived for 17 years. I left that when I went to college and later married. I now have a new home and the one I have in mind is not a physical one like I left. Although “home” is all the places where I have lived and have memories, particularly those shared with my wife, children and friends, my real and future home is in heaven.
There is nothing more profound, in my opinion, than knowing that your loved ones (and especially my wife) are at their place, their home in heaven. What could mean more? I think often about heaven, and it is not wishful thinking. A brilliant man, once a person I knew, called faith in God believing in “the tooth fairy,” a crass and brazen comparison between an urban legend and an eternal, holy God. His belief and attitude cannot change who God is, but it marks him as a person destined to find out that God is a real person, not a fairy. What a terrible realization awaits him because “Reality is not restricted by the limits of our ability to understand.”
Our new home will be amazing, with a new and different earth for us to live in. We can imagine parts of it, but our images are dull and not clear, foggy with cultural and human limitations. Nevertheless, as Alcorn puts it, “We are strangers in a foreign country called earth. We live in tents, feeble temporary dwellings, but we’re headed toward glorious permanence.”
In our resurrected state we’ll have bodies with physical substance (1 Corinthians 15.42-44) and we will be capable of talking, walking, touching, and being touched. Of course, we can’t know exactly what heaven will be like—it will be new to us, and we will have a new name that we are known by. Therefore we will have our own identity—not simply a new spirit, but a new body as well. That alone is a wonderful promise.
There will be unimaginable joy in heaven—a new kind of joy that can be expressed because we are with God and his people, with Jesus as our Master and Savior, with the Holy Spirit as our teacher and guide. You can’t have joy and happiness without singing and all of us will be able to sing in our new home. There will be instruments to accompany us as well and the sounds will resound to God in praise and to his glory. What a scene!
There will also be rest and work: a beautiful combination of what God has always provided and wanted. And why will that be? It is because that is what we were created for: “Our time here was the preliminaries, not the main event, the tune-up not the concert.”
We will not be bored in heaven: “In heaven we’ll be at home with the God who loves and whom we love—and lovers are never bored with each other.” We will belong to God and will always have new things for to do and we will have all eternity to learn how.
Alcorn asks if we will remember our lives on earth once we are in heaven. “I see absolutely no biblical reason why I should not remember these things [my wife, family, trials, things, and people]. I see every reason why I would.” The martyrs want to be remembered for what they did, and God keeps a record in heaven. However, happiness there will not be dependent on our ignorance of what is happening on earth. God and the angels are concerned with what is happening on earth and heaven is a place where saints talk to God. Can’t we assume that in heaven we will pray for those on earth?
I believe those in heaven know what is happening on earth. Moses and Elijah talked with Jesus about Jesus’ approaching death and there is a tremendous group of “witnesses” who know what is going on in my life. To the exact extent of their knowledge, I cannot be sure, but about the fact of their interest and prayers, I can be reasonably sure.
There are rewards in heaven, and it is not wrong to desire them. They are not for doing good things—they are for being faithful to the end. God will reward us for our acts of faithfulness to him, right down to every cup of cold water given in his name.” (Mark 9.41) I can’t remember how many cups of water and drink Joice gave out in PNG, Texas, Australia, and NZ. She didn’t count them but gave them in a gracious spirit.
It is a fact that there will be differing types and degrees of rewards. Why shouldn’t there be? Not every act of ours is the same or done in the spirit of God. Why does God reward what we should be doing anyway? Because He is just, and with complete understanding, does not overlook anyone.
How do we cultivate our sense of the eternal? How much should we think about heaven? As an old man now, I think a great deal about heaven: especially, when I am going and how I am going. My treasures are in heaven, and I want to spend my time moving towards them. As C.S. Lewis said, “Make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same.”
Karl Franklin
Comments