Thoughts About Heaven

Heaven is not here, it's There. If we were given all we wanted here, our hearts would settle for this world rather than the next. God is forever luring us up and away from this one, wooing us to Himself and His still invisible Kingdom, where we will certainly find what we so keenly long for.  Elisabeth Elliot

Have you ever thought about the people you will see in heaven and those you will get to spend time with when you get there?  Then there is the time itself where you will have unlimited time where it doesn’t end. 

I remember many summers spent with my grandparents.  My sister and I would go for a week every summer to spend with my grandparents outside of Austin.  Sometimes if we were lucky we might get to stay an extra week. 

My grandmother was a great cook so when you went to Granny’s house she always had homemade cookies.  I don’t remember ever going to her house when there weren’t cookies in the cookie jar.  Sometimes it would be chocolate chip, oatmeal and sugar cookies and the next time there would be peanut butter and potato chip cookies.

My Grandpa was a fisherman so we always had the opportunity to go fishing or tubing in the creek that ran behind their house.  Grandpa had all the fishing equipment.  He had cane poles, hooks, corks and we would go down to the nearest bait store for minnows, worms and crickets.  Grandpa also taught us how to bait our own hook.  We were girly girls but we could bait our hook and remove a fish from the line. 

Granny and Grandpa also had a swing on their front porch and there were always times where you would just sit on the swing and talk about nothing in particular. 

Granny and Grandpa were always the ones who let us get away with stuff that your parents would never allow.  You always knew no matter what we did, Granny and Grandpa never told Mom and Dad.  You might get in trouble while you were there, but they never told on you.  It was the unwritten “Granny Grandpa Rule”.

When I think about heaven and the people I will see there I think about my grandparents. Can you imagine having no schedule and all the time in the world to just visit or maybe just go fishing with your Grandpa or cookies and milk with your Grandma? 

How about getting the opportunity to sit and talk to Jesus with no meetings to get to and having unlimited time with the One who saved us?  What about getting to talk to David about a sling-shot and a rock or Noah and a boatload of animals?  Then you might be able hear Moses talk about parting the Red Sea?  I look forward to Heaven with great longing.  

                  

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I am forever thankful for your many blessings, the most important one being Christ’s death on the cross for my sin.  Thank you for giving us a way back to You.  I look forward to seeing and worshiping You in Heaven.   

Scripture:  And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.  Matthew 8:11

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.  And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful.” And He said to me, “It is done!  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.  Revelation 21:1-7