What will heaven be like?
- No Death. I Corinthians 15:26, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."
- No Night. Revelation 21:25, "And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day; for there shall be no night there," Have you ever been at home at night, alone, in the dark, and you heard a noise? Scare you? That will not happen in heaven as there will never be no light.
- No Pain. No more skinned knees or broken arms, burst appendix or heart attacks. Cancer, gone.
- No Sin. All of our sin nature will be gone.
- New Bodies. I Corinthians 15:49, "The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall all be changed." What event is this passage referring to? Ugly as we perceive it will be made perfectly beautiful. Ravaging diseases and physical defects will be made perfect. The blind will see, the deaf will hear. The first thing a deaf man will hear is Jesus''s sweet voice. The first thing a blind man will see is Jesus' nail-scarred hands.
- New Minds. I Corinthians 13:12, "Now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known." We will understand why things have happened, why friends and relatives have died, why accidents have happened. Some people question why someone dies. If a person who has accepted Christ into their heart and asked for forgiveness dies, and an unsaved friend or relative goes to the funeral and hears the gospel, this may be their only opportunity to hear a message about Christ and what he died for. Had this person not died, the friend or relative may not have heard a clear message about Jesus. We sometimes later, maybe years, see the why of a terrible event, but we may not fully understand until we arrive in heaven.
Will we know people?
Luke 16:23-24, And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
The rich man in hell saw someone he knew in Paradise, Lazarus. He also knew Abraham, although he had died hundreds of years before. If someone in hell knows others, then there is no doubt we will know others in heaven.
In my mind I can see those who I know who have gone before me, friends and relatives. We will also meet those from previous generations, and those whose lives we read about in the Bible: Moses, Noah, Adam and Eve, and David. Wow, what a day that will be! Make sure you read your Bible, or else something embarrassing could happen. How will you feel when Habakkuk comes up and asks you how you liked his book?
Of course we will have a lot of questions, or will we? When our bodies are changed, it is possible that we will just know it all. Deep thoughts, but things we only have to look forward to.
Where is heaven? Per Isaiah we find out what Lucifer's aspirations were, and he described Lucifer wanting to ascend higher than the highest star in the north. As our modern astronomers have found stars many light years away from us, this indicates heaven is indeed far away.
What will the city Jesus mentions where the mansions go be like? Revelations give us many specific details. It is 1200 miles by 1200 miles. Huge. The streets will be pure gold, and the city will have twelve gates. Each gate is a pearl. A river will run through the city, coming out from the throne of God. On each side of the river will be the trees of lie. The twelve trees give twelve kinds of fruit. The water will be crystal clear and clean.
Will we have bodies? Yes! Remember the rich man seeing Lazarus and Abraham?
Can those in heaven see what is going on here on Earth? We believe so based upon the witnesses mentioned in Hebrews 12:1,2, "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith..."
In our daily lives we have bad days. Occasionally we have just had it, and it is the worst day of our lives, knowing no one ever had as bad of a day in all history before. You just know tomorrow will be worse! When this happens, remember Daniel. He was third highest ruler in a country and the next thing you know he was sleeping with some very hungry lions. Think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They had their names forcibly changed from Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. They were doing fine until the king said all had to bow to him and say he was god. They did not, and he tried to burn them alive.
There is always someone who has had a worse day than you, and those who have gone before are there for an example for us. Note their reaction in heaven when a soul is saved. Luke 15:18, "Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." It says there is joy in the presence of the angels, and that joy may well be the saints in heaven.
Jesus told us he went ahead of us to build us our mansions. This is the same thing a man told his fiancé in Bible times. The bride had to wait eagerly for his return when their home(which was a room added on this his parent's house) was built, so they could marry and move into the new home. This is the image of the virgins waiting in the New Testament in Matthew 25:1-12. The husband would blow his trumpet when he came back to announce his arrival, and all fiancés would rush to see who's man came back. Remember the church catholic (that means the worldwide church, not the catholic church) is the bride of Christ. At the rapture we hear his trumpet as our groom comes for us. In Matthew we see some of the virgins waiting were not waiting properly, these are false believers who miss the rapture as they follow a different Jesus, not the one clearly taught in the Bible. In verse 12 we see the awful truth, "But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not." I cannot imagine hearing that from my fiancé as I tried to go home with him.
I Thessalonians 4:16-18, "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words."
Comfort one another with these words. I often look up to the sky and imagine what that day will be like. Never stop looking for him, for when we stop it shows us how much the world has sucked us in with their concerns, or how far away from Christ we have slidden.
It took Jesus only six days to create the heavens and the earth. Now, imagine what he can do in over two-thousand years! No, we cannot truly imagine. Our minds are not capable of understanding eternity, much less heaven.
Imagine a sparrow can carry a grain of sand, and with only one grain at a time carries all the sand on the East coast of America to the West coast of America. In the thousands of years this would take, our time with Jesus will have only just begun. See, hard to imagine. There will be no time in heaven, not like we have here for sleeping, working, sun rotation, etc. We will be outside of time, and that is something even harder to imagine!
The most important question of all is this; how can we know we will be going to heaven?
Follow this conversation. If we go to an airport and you say to me, "Is that an airplane?"
I respond, "Yes."
"Do you believe the airplane will fly?"
I say, "Yes," again.
"Do you believe the airplane will take you to California?"
For the third time, I reply, "Yes."
But, even after declaring what I believe, I never get on the airplane and make the desired trip. At some point I must trust the pilot and get on board the airplane or I will never make it to California.
The path to heaven is quite similar. Seeing your soul in the light of eternity and seeing all the sin we have committed, you admit being a sinner and see you can never pay for all the sins you have done. You accept that Jesus's death on the cross and resurrection paid the full price for your sins for all eternity. This is the first step. The second is asking for forgiveness, and trusting Jesus for salvation. This is called faith.
If anyone wants to talk about knowing Christ, you can contact me via this blog. While this is not even close to what we know about the new city of God and the size of our mansions, it pales in the light of making sure we see those gold streets and see Jesus, his Father, and the Holy Spirit.
