Fourth in a series on the big questions of life.
listen to podcast? https://www.pastorwoman.net/podcast/episode/e2f2d741/forever-is-a-long-time-4-in-big-question-series
“Why Am I Here?” You ask. Unequivocally and boldly, you are here for relationship with your Creator, while on this planet and aye, forever! While our daily living in relationship with Jesus is sweet, it does not compare with what seeing Jesus and talking to him face to face will be like. I mean . . . can you only imagine??
Since ‘forever’ is a very long time, what will our forever home be like?
In “Why Am I Here?” https://conta.cc/3asv44X, I strived to begin a painting in your mind of the reality of Heaven. Oh, Heaven is beautiful beyond compare with rich colors, landscapes, magnificent waterways . . . Heaven is a place of glorious LIGHT; in heaven, there is no darkness. Heaven is a place of LOVE and you guessed it—two kinds of love. Love of God and love of other people. Heaven displays it all around.
Revelation chapter 21 gives us great information with some specific details, such as the fact that there are 12 gates, each one, an individual pearl. Heaven is laid out as a square – 12,000 furlongs is what John describes in this 21st chapter, which in today’s language means it is a cube 1500 miles square. How to grasp that? It is a cube 1500 miles square. This is as large as the area from Canada to Mexico and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rockies; it can easily accommodate 20 billion residents, each having his or her own 75-acre plot.1
The walls of Heaven have 12 foundations, (Revelation 21.14), adorned with precious stones-2 amethysts, topaz, rubies – with the grand street in the middle being made of pure gold. Stop for a moment and think of how the great light of Heaven, combined with the transparent beautiful gold and the depth of the colors of the foundations of Heaven would make for prismatic colorful beauty. In the mail the other day, I got Imagine Heaven,3 in which the author said, "Apparently, God's Light contains an exquisite pallet of thousands more colors, internally lighting everything. And the light is palpable -- infused with the love and joy of God."4 Palpable colorful light infused with the love and joy of God? Craziness, wishful thinking, some flower child’s imagination? Not if you have spent any time reading the stories of those who have had some experience in Heaven and returned.
There will be no loneliness in Heaven as we will be enveloped by perfect love--which gives new understanding to the scripture, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”5
In Heaven, we will be our best self. We will know and be fully known by God and others. And now it makes sense that Paul’s chapter on love includes, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”6 Further illuminated in this translation, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”7
Entering into a relationship with God through the work of his Son, Jesus, is the gateway to a meaningful, fulfilling life on earth and magnificence life forever with him. Why are you here? To partake of and participate in that great life, now and forever. Amen!
Christine
1 – Heaven: My Father’s House, Anne Graham Lotz
2 – Revelations 21.19
3 – Imagine Heaven, John Burke
4 – ibid
5 – Deuteronomy 31.8; Hebrews 13.5
6 – 1 Corinthians 13.12, NIV
7 – 1 Corinthians 13.12, NLT
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