A topic that has truly fascinated me and encouraged me throughout my life is Heaven—not only Heaven as it is now, but the promised new heavens and New Earth. The reality of eternity has begun to undergird so much of what I do and how I think.
I have found that when we truly focus on Heaven and eternity with our Lord and Savior—with our Father God—life begins to look different. Our perspective changes when we view this life in light of eternity. Fear begins to lose its grip: fear of the future, fear of death, and fear of what lies ahead. We remember that, for those who belong to Christ, our ultimate future is secure in Him.
Until I began truly researching and studying Heaven and eternity, I did not realize how often Scripture directs our attention toward eternal things. Paul tells us to “set [our] minds on things above” (Colossians 3:2), and elsewhere he reminds us that “the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
There truly is freedom in living in light of eternity.
Jesus is coming back for us. We do not know the day or the hour, but we are told to live expectantly, watching and waiting for His return. I am so ready to meet my Savior. I am ready for eternity with Him and for the joy of being reunited with family, friends, and all my brothers and sisters in Christ.
However, I also realize that we are still here on this Earth for a purpose.
Jesus summarized what God desires from us beautifully: “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:29–31). In many ways, this sums up how we are called to live.
And if we truly love our neighbors as ourselves, how can we not want them to know Jesus?
We tell them about Him. We share the Gospel with them in the hope that they, too, will come to know the salvation found in Christ. We show them the love of Jesus through the way we live and the way we treat them. We pray for them. We walk beside them through life when we can, while also recognizing that there may be times when wisdom requires boundaries.
People matter eternally.
Everything we accumulate here will eventually be left behind. Our houses, possessions, money, accomplishments, and earthly status will not accompany us into eternity. But the people we love can be there.
What a sobering and yet incredibly encouraging thought.
Of course, we cannot choose Christ for another person. Each person must respond to Him. We cannot force belief or manufacture someone else’s salvation. What we can do is love them, tell them about Jesus, share the Gospel with them, live out our faith before them, and faithfully pray for them. The rest we entrust to God.
Is Heaven Going to Be Boring?
Have you ever been given the impression that Heaven will be boring?
Maybe you have heard that we will float around as spirits, sit on clouds playing harps, or do nothing but sing for all eternity. Those images are everywhere in popular culture, and I think they have given many of us an incredibly distorted picture of our eternal future.
Scripture gives us something far richer.
The Christian hope is not ultimately that we will remain disembodied spirits floating somewhere in the clouds. Christianity teaches resurrection. Jesus was physically raised from the dead, and Scripture promises that His people will also be raised (1 Corinthians 15). Revelation ends not with God’s people escaping creation forever, but with a new heaven and a New Earth and God dwelling with His people (Revelation 21–22).
Think about that.
God is not simply throwing His creation away.
He is making all things new.
Our eternal existence with God will be more beautiful, more wonderful, and more satisfying than anything we can presently comprehend. Scripture tells us enough to give us breathtaking glimpses of what is coming, while still leaving mysteries that we cannot yet understand.
We will worship God, certainly—but not because eternity is an endless church service we are obligated to attend. We will see Him more clearly than we ever have before. His goodness, holiness, beauty, love, and glory will be before us without the veil that presently limits our understanding. Worship will be the natural response of hearts finally freed from sin and able to delight fully in the One who made and redeemed us.
And there will be so much more.
Scripture gives us images of feasting and fellowship. Jesus spoke of people coming from east and west and reclining at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 8:11). He also spoke at the Last Supper of drinking again with His disciples in His Father’s kingdom (Matthew 26:29). Revelation describes the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9).
Yes—there is eating in our eternal future!
Scripture also describes God’s servants serving Him and reigning with Him (Revelation 22:3–5). Work itself was part of God’s good creation before sin ever entered the world. The curse made work painful and frustrating; work itself was not the curse. That gives us reason to believe that meaningful activity, service, creativity, responsibility, and purpose have a place in God’s restored creation—without the exhaustion, futility, frustration, and brokenness we experience now.
Imagine work without burnout.
Learning without confusion.
Relationships without jealousy, insecurity, cruelty, or betrayal.
Creation without decay.
A body without sickness.
Life without the shadow of death hanging over it.
Scripture does not tell us every detail of what we will learn, explore, create, or discover in eternity. I love imagining what it might be like to explore God’s restored creation, to understand things that mystify us now, and perhaps even to ask questions we have carried with us throughout our lives. Whatever God has prepared will surely exceed the limits of what we can presently imagine.
And perhaps that is part of the wonder of it.
We know enough to hope.
We know enough to long for it.
We know enough to allow eternity to change the way we live today.
by: Kimberly Hardy
