Head Straight for Heaven: 5 Wonders of the World to Come

You received’t get to heaven except you actually wish to. That’s what the Bible tells us.

Jesus wished to go to heaven. Hebrews tells us that the enjoyment of heaven propelled his life of religion (Hebrews 12:2). It’s what motivated him to run and run all the best way to the top. The identical pleasure motivated the opposite heroes too, from Abel to Zechariah (Hebrews 11:4, 37). All ran by risks and toils and snares — too many to rely — they usually didn’t cease. Why? As a result of they longed for heaven. They longed for the heavenly nation that they may see simply past the end line (Hebrews 11:13–16).

You’ll be able to’t run the race of religion all the best way to the top with out a clear imaginative and prescient of heaven. Your legs will give out. The power of your resolve received’t be sufficient. The course is just too steep. The headwind too robust. Ask the heroes. Ask Jesus. They’ll all say the identical factor. Solely the thrill of heaven can maintain the race of religion.

Of their post-race interview, they’d need you to know that the race is feasible. What else are we to make of the truth that they made it? However they’d additionally need you to know how. If we requested them that, I believe they’d smile, maybe pause to wipe some sweat off their face, after which start speaking about heaven.

Right here’s what they could say.

Reunion

Always remember that heaven can be crammed with individuals who know and love the Lord Jesus identical to we do. Everyone there’ll know the Lord “from the least . . . to the best” (Hebrews 8:11). All of the folks we’ve liked and misplaced, and who knew and liked the Lord Jesus, can be there in that place. Each single one in all them: pals who died too quickly, taken by illness or worse; youngsters taken as youngsters; mother and father; grandparents; wives and husbands.

Heaven can be crammed with Jesus-people, with the “church of the firstborn” (New Testomony believers) and “the spirits of the righteous made excellent” (Outdated Testomony believers; Hebrews 12:23). Each believer of all time can be there. Some we are able to’t wait to fulfill, like Charles Spurgeon or Martyn Lloyd-Jones or John Stott. And others we are able to’t wait to see once more — some whose names are nonetheless too painful to say aloud. They’ll be there. All of them.

What a day of rejoicing that can be.

Perfection

Heaven can also be a spot the place God has promised to completely “put [his] legal guidelines into [our] minds, and write them on [our] hearts” (Hebrews 8:10). In the event you’ve been a Christian for greater than, say, 5 minutes, you then’ve longed for this actuality, whilst you’ve skilled it partially. It’s a promise that reminds us that heaven can be freed from sin. We can be free from sin. God’s good and life-giving methods can be a part of the DNA of our resurrected our bodies. You’ll not have the ability to sin. And that lack of freedom received’t trouble you! It’ll be among the best issues about you and that place.

It’s a actuality each Christian longs for. We lengthy to be freed from our inveterate self-seeking. Our debilitating jealousy. Our too-small and ill-directed needs. Our incapability to behave for God’s glory with something however combined motives. That darkness inside you that occupies a lot of your thoughts and coronary heart, that sample you lengthy to see modified, foresworn, delay, that sin that besets you now — it is going to be completely eliminated within the sin-free world to return.

It’s a promise whose future actuality extends again into the current. When Jesus died, he activated God’s promise of perfection. The Bible calls it God’s new covenant. And it provides believers on this chapter of the story not solely the prospect of future perfection, however current experiences of that future world. After we believed in Jesus, sin’s energy over us was damaged in a brand-new method. Our slavery to sin and the satan and the concern of loss of life ended (Hebrews 2:14–15). And all this anticipates the total flowering of God’s promise sooner or later, the place sin’s energy and presence can be eradicated.

A spot with out sin. A life with out sin. It’s what we had been made for. And it’s what God guarantees us on the finish of our race.

Creation

Hebrews calls that coming place a “world to return” (Hebrews 2:5). I’m afraid we don’t take into consideration this sufficient. Too typically, heaven is a cipher for one thing much less actual, much less tactile, much less concrete than this world. Because of this, it fails to seize our imaginations and hearts. However the finish of God’s story is nothing lower than a new creation. A spot with meals and animals of each type. A spot filled with surprise and sweetness. A spot with issues to do, to make, to create. A spot crammed with music, gardens, and video games. A spot simply like this one, solely unburdened by sin.

“You’ll be able to’t run the race of religion all the best way to the top with out a clear imaginative and prescient of heaven.”

What do you lengthy for on this world? What locations make your coronary heart ache? What smells and textures and sounds make your coronary heart sing? Pine needles on a sunny forest path. Freshly baked bread. Birdsong, dashing water, cello suites. Windswept plains. Starry, starry nights. Every is a pointer given by God and meant to attract us inexorably to the world to return.

Each single good need created by this world — each final one — can be fulfilled within the subsequent.

There’s a world on the finish of our race, with joys far too giant for our little phrases. Metaphor and simile attempt their finest. However these too fall quick, which is why one of the best window into that world is this one. So, we should not overlook that when God created this world, he referred to as it “excellent” (Genesis 1:31). However when he talks in regards to the world to return, he calls it even “higher” (Hebrews 11:16).

Love

Now for one of the best half: God is there.

It’s one of the best actuality of heaven, and it’s the toughest one to wrap our minds round. Hebrews doesn’t simply inform us that God is getting ready a world for us; Hebrews tells us that God is planning to stay there with us. That’s why the place is known as “the town of the dwelling God” (Hebrews 12:22). It’s the success of God’s age-old promise to be our God and for us to be his folks (Hebrews 8:10). In that promise, we finite creatures discover our greatest and highest good.

We’re rightly glad that heaven is a spot and that it’s filled with different folks we all know and love. However nonetheless, there’s something in us, a longing, that solely God himself can fill. There’s a type of pleasure that comes from regarding God that’s not like anything. It’s a pleasure that’s typically simpler to expertise than to elucidate.

However let me attempt.

Our deepest joys on this earth come from private relationships. We expertise them once we spend time with folks we all know and love and who know and love us. Individuals who know us and nonetheless love us. That’s what every of us needs greater than anything.

That is exactly what God provides us in himself. He is aware of us higher than anybody else. And he loves us nonetheless. In truth, he loves us extra than anybody else. Greater than we may ever think about. God loves you so very a lot. And he’s confirmed it past all shadow of doubt by sacrificing his most valuable Son for our good (John 3:16; Romans 5:8; 8:31–32).

Someday, Hebrews tells us, in that coming world, filled with God’s household and free from sin, we’ll stay with God himself. We’ll stay with the one whose love for us is best than life itself (Psalm 63:3). This hope is both true or it isn’t. And, if true, then it’s greater than adequate to gas our race of religion all the best way to the fantastic finish.

Perpetually

Lastly, Hebrews — the heroes — need you to know another factor. Heaven is eternally.

Hebrews calls that world to return unshakable, “lasting,” and “everlasting” (9:15; 12:27; 13:14). All that good comes not with a interval however an ellipsis. There’s no expiration date. No last chapter. No finish. Each good of this world ends to make us lengthy for the subsequent. Each good meal, dialog, snicker, and sundown. All of them finish in order that we lengthy for a world the place the great by no means ends. Or, higher, the place the great ends solely as a result of what follows is higher nonetheless.

All our adventures on this life, wherever our race could take us on this vast world, are, as C.S. Lewis reminds us, merely “the duvet and the title web page” to the “Nice Story . . . which matches on . . . eternally” and “by which each chapter is best than the one earlier than” (The Final Battle, 767).

Perpetually joys. Perpetually rising joys. It’s the type of story solely God may inform. It’s the type of completely satisfied ending solely an infinitely artistic storyteller may think about. So run, Christian, run. Run all the best way to the top. Heaven can be value all of it.