Heaven is a wonderful place

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. Colossians 3: 1 - 2

In the UK the main school holidays are just about to start. Many families will be eagerly anticipating their summer holiday which they may have booked months ago. I am sure many of them will have researched their destination. They will know what they are going to so they can make the most of their time away maybe with family and friends.

What is strange is that very few Christians so eagerly anticipate their final destination of heaven. If you start talking to anyone about death or heaven they think you are being morbid and want to change the subject. However heaven is the most amazing destination and should be eagerly anticipated by the Christian so much so that they desire to take as many people as possible with them.

The fear of death or at least dying grips many Christian souls – yet it shouldn’t. Paul said ‘²² If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labour for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! ²³ I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; ²⁴ but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.’ Philippians 1: 22 – 24. Paul was torn between being with Christ in heaven or staying to continue his labours with the Philippians. I am convinced this should also be our dilemma – to go to Christ or continue our work here.  Certainly whilst I am not looking to die in the near future neither do I fear it as I used to. I asked God to deliver me from a fear of death and dying and he has done so.

I am persuaded that heaven is a wonderful place yet so many Christians dread heaven imagining it will be one long, rather boring worship service. Or maybe we will be sitting around on clouds playing our harps. Nothing could be further from the truth and yet we do not take the time to research it and find out the truth.

One of the problems is that whilst the Bible says a lot about death, dying and heaven it is scattered throughout the Old and New Testament. There is not a chapter on heaven which we can read. As well there is a lot of apocalyptic teaching about heaven and allegorical writing and it is difficult to know what is hard fact and what is symbolic. Sometimes there are so many opinions especially about the book of Revelation that we just give up.

However there are good books on heaven and there is the Holy Spirit who will guide us into all truth. Let him guide your reading on death and heaven both in the Bible and other books and let him take away any fear you may have. We are going to spend eternity in heaven and it is very important that we prepare well for it. Hiding our heads in the sand is not the answer.

My desire is that we are excited about heaven and want to tell others how to get there. People need to know that they are not going to get there by their own good works which is what most people believe.  They need to know that God loves us so much that he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross to take away our sins so that we can spend eternity with him. This is the greatest free gift available to anyone who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ.

United with Christ

One with himself I cannot die

My soul is purchased with his blood

My life is hid with Christ on high

My Saviour and my God

 Many times Paul talks about being ‘in Christ’ and in Romans chapter 6 he expounds on what that means.  When we became Christians we asked God, by faith, to forgive our sins and to become Lord of our lives.  At that moment our old self died, the old body of sin, destined to death, living to please itself was ‘rendered powerless’. We were set free from sin and its grip on our lives. At that moment we were raised to a new life, we were born again and we were united with Christ.  Just as Christ died and was raised to a new life, we too died and were raised with him to a new life.

Water baptism by immersion is a wonderful picture of that.  Our bodies are immersed in water signifying our old self being put to death and then we are raised out of the water signifying being raised to a new life. 

We are now united with Christ and as that truth becomes a reality in our lives, the slavery to sin weakens day on day.  The truth is - the power of sin is broken in your life.  Sin does not have any hold on you; you have died to it so how can you live in it any longer?  Paul exhorts us to ‘reckon or count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 6:11).  We have been raised to a new life and we have to work this out on a daily basis with the help of the ever present Holy Spirit. 

As we let the truth that we are united with Christ, our lives are immersed in him, his power releases us every day to walk in the freedom he won for us on the cross. God has such great plans for our lives, much better than our own plans and he unfolds these as we trust him and walk united with him.