Hold on….heaven awaits
The more the world goes to hell the more I long for heaven. Peace…goodness…love…joy. Everlasting perfect bliss without the slightest hint or danger of violence, deception, immorality, hatred, sadness, suffering or pain. This is the destiny of all who submit to the God of the universe.
But though the reality of an eternal existence so wonderfully dichotomous to this temporal one is a major tenet of Christianity, how many of us really believe it to the extent that it impacts our existence in this troubled, temporal world? If we have confidence that all will someday be made right; truth will prevail; evil will be judged and eradicated; wars, violence, sorrow and sin will cease; and we will even be like God “because we shall see him as he is,” shouldn’t we of all people be marked by a spirit of joyful anticipation that dispels worry, fear and despair?
This post is a challenge to myself as much as to anyone else. God is real. Heaven is real. This messed up world and every messed up one of us in it will someday pass away. But the one by whom all things were created, who came to live among us, who came to die for us, is waiting to welcome to his side all who pass away from this world having been saved from the wrath to come through faith in him. So that where he is we may be also. Because our passing from this world is not the end of our existence. We were made for eternity and we will either spend it with God or without him. Many believe an eternity without him sounds pretty good. But life without any light, goodness, love, or truth is a life with only darkness, evil, hatred, lies, and suffering beyond what we can even conceive. Sounds pretty bad to me.
Believers in the true God have a sure hope of a sure future happiness that is also inconceivable. A happiness that was always God’s desire for us but can never be fully realized and experienced apart from oneness with him. It is what we were created for and is our eternal destiny if we will only receive it by faith.
Heaven will be heavenly because God is there…and everything evil is not.
“Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.” – Isaiah 45:22
