Eternity of Glory

Often, I find myself imaging what heaven will be like. I know I am young, and I likely have many days and years ahead of me to live the life God has blessed me with, but I wrestle daily with my sinfulness and I long for the day when I will be made new and forever be separated from the curse of sin and truly free to live in the glorious presence of my Savior and God.

My favorite description of heaven in the Bible is from Revelation 21:2-7. The Apostle John is on the Island of Patmos around 90AD when God shows him visions of the end of all time that comprise the book of Revelation. This is what he said in chapter 21 concerning heaven:

2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. 7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

Many ideas of heaven have circulated Christian circles for many years and one of those ideas is that heaven is some far-off place separate from Earth. But I don’t think that’s the case. Heaven, according to God as he showed John, is the dwelling place of God, and when God descends in his full glory to the earth he created, the earth, in whatever state it’s in, will become heaven, for that’s where God will be. God will dwell with mankind and he himself, in his fullness of glory, will be our God, and we will be his people forever and ever, amen!

Heaven will be the eternal dwelling place of all those who were faithful to Jesus to the very end. In heaven, there will be no sadness or grief. The pain we’ve endured in the past will be replaced by indescribable joy! We will forget the hurt and the grief and the sorrow because we will be in the presence of our savior who bore our sins and removed them as far as the east is from the west. There will be no regret, no mistakes, and no bad decisions.

All things will be made new, and this includes you! There will be no aches and pains, no sleepless nights, no hurt shoulders or broken hips, no poor eyesight, no sickness, no disease, no cancer, no death, for the old things have passed away and behold the new things will have come.

In our eternal home, we will not be sitting on clouds strumming harps and singing hymns for eternity but rather spending an infinite amount of time further discovering the infinite nature of our infinite God. God is infinite in his creativity and there will be no end to what will be created and thought of. Each idea will be new and exciting and will lead to discoveries of a new wonder of creation and of God himself. Never will one day pass in which we do the same thing twice and each day will always bring a new and greater pleasure than the last. Nothing will be made to be inferior but only greater and greater to infinity.

I believe we will find that everything we knew on earth was only a shadow of it’s true form and beauty as intended by God. Mountains may grow as if they were trees and when we climb the highest peak, we will only find a higher one yet before us, every increasing into the sky. Streams will flow with the majesty of waterfalls and waterfalls will cascade as if coming off the highest mountain. Fresh grass may be sweet enough for everyone to eat and could put our most delicate desserts to shame. Never in all of eternity will we exhaust the depth and richness of the new creation.

In heaven we will discover a fellowship with others the best earthly marriage only ever hinted of. Instead of spending a lifetime learning about one person, we will spend an eternity learning about every person that was touched by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. We will see loved ones who were faithful to Christ and will rejoice as their presence, yet we will have no need or desire to exclude others. We will learn of God’s provision from Abraham. We will hear of God’s grace from King David. We will learn of God’s love from Peter and Paul. We will hear testimony of God’s sovereignty from all those who suffered and died for the sake of Christ. And if we ever hear every story from every believer from every age, we will only have scratched the surface of our knowledge and understanding of God.

Lest you think there will be no work in heaven, I believe we will work harder than we ever have before! The New Heaven and Earth will be sustained by the presence God and will feed off the radiance of his glory yet perhaps it will be maintained by us. If God’s command to Adam and Eve was to have dominion over God’s creation, why won’t we have dominion over the new creation? O the gardens we will create! Plots of land with planted with every fruit and vegetable imaginable yet different varieties and kinds always keep forming. Fields as far as the eye can see, bursting with grains and grass and oats, plowed with the greatest of pleasure and harvested without fear of anything going to waste.

And through and in everything we do, at the center of all will be Jesus, our risen Lord and King. No pursuit will be selfish, and no word will be spoken in arrogance. Everything will be acceptable, and everything will be beneficial because God is dwelling with us and he is our God and we are his people, forever and ever AMEN!!

Now, I don’t know if my idea of heaven is what it will actually be like, but regardless you can be sure that heaven will be far greater than anything I or anyone else can some up with! If my imagination of heaven made you at least a little excited of what is to come, then I’ll consider it a success because that was my goal. Whenever Christians think about eternity in the presence of God in the New Heaven and the New Earth, we should become excited! Heaven is our hope, the hope that helps us endure through suffering. Yet if we fear eternity or are not excited about what awaits, then how will it help us through suffering? Genuine anticipation of the glory that awaits with Christ in the New Creation is what sooths our souls and helps us endure these hard times. But in relation to the text of 1 Peter 4:1-6, our hope of eternal life purchased by the death and resurrection of Jesus is also a motivation to live godly lives according to the will of God.

There was a time for each of us when sinfulness ruled our hearts and desires. In our sin we choose to live in ways that gratify our desires and passions. It’s evident even in babies who scream and cry because they are dissatisfied with the food they were given for lunch…they’d rather have anything else other than what’s on their plate. Most people I’ve talked too have gone through periods of rebellion characterized by some form of self-indulgent behavior: drugs, alcohol, sex, parties, smoking, vaping, vandalism, theft. St. Augustine, an early church father and notable theologian confessed to stealing all the pears from a pear tree with a group of his friends simply for the guilty pleasure of stealing as they ended up throwing the pears away without eating even one. It’s this type of pleasure seeking that defines all people; it’s a distinguishing characteristic of sinfulness.

But God.

But God, rich in his mercy and because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace we have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-7).

This is what God does for those whom he calls out of darkness and into the glorious light of his Son. It’s the calling that is offered to every soul regardless of the evil we have done. Through faith in the resurrected Jesus, one is fundamentally transformed: the old is gone and the new has come. There is freedom from slavery to sin and the empty pleasures of the earth and we are given the hope of eternal life.

But until we enter through the doorway of death into eternal life, sinfulness still lingers for we struggle each day with the desires of our sinfulness. If we are not careful to intentionally choose what is good in the eyes of God each day, we will find ourselves falling away and returning to our old ways of life. In fact, the world around us will always pressure followers of Jesus to live the way they do instead of the way Jesus calls us to. This is why suffering for doing good is so important.

Each day we are presented with a choice: do what is good in the eyes of God or do what is good in our own eyes. As we’ve been seeing in 1 Peter, sometimes choosing what is good comes with consequences. But consider this: if you choose to do what is good even through suffering might follow, you are making a declaration that there is something more important to you than the immediate pleasures of this life. This is what Peter means when he said, “whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin so as to live for the rest of time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.” (1 Peter 4:1-2). The world lives for the passions of the flesh and will try to tempt you to live that way too, but if you can choose suffering for Christ over temporary comforts and pleasures, then you may be assured of your salvation.

This is why the gospel is preached throughout the world and was preached even to those Christians who are now dead; that though suffering might even lead to death, death is not the end for those who follow Christ but only the doorway to the glorious eternal life in the presence of God.

Christian, the best is yet to come. If we are called to suffer for a few years in this life so that we might inherit eternal life, it’s worth it. No amount of pain or suffering can outweigh the eternity of glory that awaits those who love Christ and obey his voice. May we continually learn to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus.