The Reality of Heaven

I believe one of the great schemes of the enemy is to get us to think wrongly about heaven. If our thoughts about heaven are inaccurate, it changes everything. If heaven is like a boring church service in smelly, old pews, not only do we not long for heaven, but we start believing that this place right here is our actual home. We focus our perspective on this reality instead of heaven’s reality. We don’t really spend time seeking the Lord and knowing the Scriptures because, after all, if heaven is that boring of a place, then I’m not really looking forward to being there. We get sucked in to thinking that this stuff — the stuff that we see — is actually the “real” stuff of life.

But we have to get our minds set on the reality and truth of heaven, on the Kingdom of God. We have to dig into the gospels and listen to what Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom that is now and not yet. We have to meditate on Revelation 4-5 and let it affect us, let it bring up questions, let it stir up worship and wonder, let it become the way we see. The way we see heaven changes everything.

“That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”

2 Corinthians 4:16-18