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This Week’s Devotional Topic
PERSPECTIVE ON HEAVEN
How should a Christian live knowing the scriptural information we have about Heaven? On one extreme is that perspective that nothing else on this earth really matters. “Only what’s done for Christ will last”. All else will be burned up as “wood hay and stubble”. Or should our primary focus be the Great Commission, sharing the gospel with the unsaved and heaven simply be the afterlife?
The perspective that we have on Heaven changes for many of us as we get older. I remember some of my thoughts of heaven when I was an adolescent. As some of my relatives got very old and died, my parents and people around me would try to comfort me by saying they were in heaven. They would add thoughts like they are happy there, will never get sick and that they are with our other relatives who had died before. We drove across country to attend the funeral for my Uncle Clarence. The service was ‘open casket’. That gave my young mind a lot to process.
As a high schooler, my perspective of heaven was that people would go there when they got really old. I would be going there but not until many years had passed. I made a lot of plans for my life but the reality of heaven wasn’t really on my radar. I lead a fairly sheltered life so I didn’t attend many funerals and don’t remember any of my age dying.
In Bible College I learned a lot more details about heaven from a scriptural perspective. Then getting married, we talked a little about our preferences just in case one of us would be killed or die of some disease.
Later in life as we were blessed with children, my wife and I went through the process of a will, setting up a trust and making burial arrangements. Dying was still ‘down the road’.
Now as my mother has passed away a decade ago and I have been the primary caregiver for my 91-year-old father who lives with us, the reality of heaven being imminent for him is a constant reminder. And from dad’s perspective, he occasionally comments about missing mom, (his wife) and is comforted by the fact that he will see her again. And he is absolutely certain of his relationship with Jesus Christ and knows he will be in heaven. Most nights before bed he’ll tell me “I’ll see you in the morning, Lord willing”.
Whatever your age, I pray that you have done business with God, believing in Christ as God, accepting Him as your savior. And that you know beyond any doubt that by His amazing grace you will be in His presence, in Heaven when the body dies. To be absent from this body you will be present with the Lord.
No more dying there…
Isaiah 25:8,9 He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
I Corinthians 15:51-52 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
OUR FUTURE…where God is!
Isaiah 64:4 For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.
Jesus Christ told His disciples.
John 14:1-3 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
I Thessalonians 4:16-18 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
As far as I’m concerned, my “perspective regarding heaven” should be similar to what I heard while involved in a motorcycle ministry, that “…wisdom comes from the journey, not by focusing on the destination”. And may we share the same sentiment as the Apostle Paul testified…” …for me to live is Christ and to die is gain”.
Philippians 1:20,21 For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past. And I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die. For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.
Focus on Jesus Christ, every moment of every day. Live for Jesus, that’s what matters.
This week’s Scripture:
Matthew 28:19,20; Isaiah 25:8,9; I Corinthians 15:51-52; Psalm 16:11; Isaiah 60:20; 64:4; John 14:1-3 and Philippians 1:20,21
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