Thoughts on Heaven

When you are thinking, feeling and acting your best? When you had energy, joy, kindness and passion in equal measure? When you were both thinking and emotional in just the right balance, so you felt good and made all the right moves from only the best motivations? When you really loved God first and your neighbor as yourself all day long? Take that moment in life - or as close as you can get to it, imagine if you need to – as a guideline for what heaven is all about. You will be the best possible you, the person that God made you to be, at last and ever after.

What do we know about heaven for sure? We know what the Bible tells us. Most importantly, God is there. The presence of God is what makes heaven, well, heavenly. The presence of God makes heaven good, joy - filled, comforting and amazing all at once. Jesus tells us in the Gospel of John that he will prepare a place for us. Jesus tells us that he will prepare a real place for us that we are able to experience. We don't just stop "Being." God loses nothing so important as a human being.

Just a few hours after Jesus tells his disciples that he will prepare a place for them, he also tells the thief on the cross next to his own that the thief will be with him in paradise. The words of Jesus tell us that heaven is much more than a state of awareness, or a dimension of light. Heaven is a place where people still know each other and belong better than we can imagine. This means that idea of white, fluffy clouds and endless harp playing idea is out, as are reincarnations of souls. The eye has not seen, nor ear heard, what God has prepared for those who love him.

How do we get to heaven from here? We get to heaven because God loves and forgives us our sins. This is not a cheap forgiveness, but a kind of forgiveness we can only receive from God himself in a personal relationship. We depend on God to get us to heaven, and trust his promise that he will be there for us. In other words, it's not up to us to be perfect. There is a judgment, yet God understands our weaknesses. I find this comforting, for it means that all the beloved people who have died before me don’t have to be perfect for heaven - no one is that perfect, you know. In heaven we are forgiven, and we forgive others, too, even if we didn't in earthly life. Some things we have been unable to work though in life will be resolved there. We trust God for this forgiveness, and receive it here, believing that it is only a foretaste of the deep love we will know in heaven.

How do we deal with the loss we feel when someone we love dies? We remember that life is precious, and grief is a healing process. We remember that we sorrow not as if we had no hope for the future. God holds that future, and we trust Him to help us in our loss, to guide us in the present time, to help us forgive and heal our past.

That is where the church comes in. The church is not a showcase of perfect saints, as only heaven is like that. Right now, we are a school for sinners, where we learn faith, where we learn to develop the gifts God gave us at birth, where we learn about God's good and promised future for us, where we worship and serve God the way we are designed to do. The message of God's love, God's worship, God's comfort and grace has been given to us. May we strive to live in such a way that the message of love is not obstructed by our actions. Let us strive to live in such a way that our words and our lives point others toward heaven, our ultimate goal.

Charis Combs-Lay,
Pastor