Truth about heaven

Today was a full day...a wonderfully full day. I spend a majority of it helping a dear friend pack up her house. They are moving in just a few short days. This family has lived in this home for many, many years. I have a number of fond memories in this home with this dear family and friends. As I was packing boxes, I realized that it was this time last year that I was packing up my home. I was pregnant with Alivia and preparing to move out of our townhouse. How time has flown by. Never would I have known what this past year would hold for us.

Despite the urgency of many things to pack up and children all around, we still managed a good bit of fellowship. We talked of suffering, fighting for faith and heaven. Heaven...how that word is sweeter to me than ever before.

I came home and remembered something I read a few days ago. The truth it contained helped put my suffering in perspective and give me greater longing for heaven. It's long, but worth the time to read...

"Perhaps you're burdened, discouraged, depressed, or even traumatized. Perhaps you've lost a loved one. Perhaps your dreams - your family, career, or lifelong ambitions - have crumbled. Perhaps you've become cynical or have lost hope. A biblical understanding of the truth about Heaven can change all that.

Secular optimists are merely wishful thinkers. Having discovered the present payoffs of optimism, they conduct seminars and write books about positive thinking. Sometimes they capitalize on optimism by becoming rich and famous. But then what happens? They eventually get old or sick, and when they die, they are unprepared to meet God. Their optimism is ultimately an illusion, for it fails to take eternity into account.

The only proper foundation for optimism is the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. If we build our lives on the sold foundation, we should all be optimists. Why? Because even our most painful experiences in life are but temporary setbacks. Our pain and suffering may or may not be relieved in this life, but they will certainly be relieved in the life to come. That is Christ's promise - no more pain or death; he will wipe away all our tears. He took our sufferings on himself so that one day he might remove all suffering form the world. That is the biblical foundation for our optimism. Any other foundation is like sand, not rock. It will not bear the weight of our eternity.

No Christian should be pessimistic. We should be true realists - focused on the reality that we serve a sovereign and gracious God. Because of the reality of Christ's atoning sacrifice and his promises, biblical realism is optimism.

By meditating on Heaven and learning to look forward to it, we don't eliminate our pain, but we can alleviate it and put it in perspective. We're reminded that suffering and death are only temporary conditions.

Jesus came to deliver us from the fear of death, 'so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death - that is, the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.' (Hebrews 2:14-15).

In light of the coming resurrection of the dead, the apostle Paul asks, 'Where of death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?' (1 Corinthians 15:55).

When should not romanticize death. But those who know Jesus should realize that death is a gateway to never-ending joy.

Grasping what the Bible teaches about Heaven will shift our center of gravity and radically alter our perspective on life. It will give us hope, a word that the apostle Paul uses six times in Romans 8;20-25, where he explains that all creation longs for our resurrection and the world's coming redemption.

Don't place your hope in favorable life circumstances - they cannot and will not last. Instead, place your hope in Jesus Christ and his promises. One day he will return, and those who have placed their faith in him will be resurrected to life on the New Earth. They will behold God's face and joyfully serve him forever." - Randy Alcorn

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