What a Christian Should Know About Heaven

Before he died, Stephen exclaimed, “Look! I see the heavens opened!” (Acts 7:56)

Yes, heaven is a reality. Our salvation and God’s presence, which we can already enjoy here, are only a small foretaste of what our eternal home will be like.

The concept of heaven, the home of the blessed, is described to us using different images. In the Word of God, it is depicted as a city not built with hands and with twelve gates, streets of pure gold, a river of living water, and many dwellings. A white-robed multitude walks the streets, and Christ, the light of the city, sits on the great white throne. All the blessed praise Him forever. No pain, no sorrow, no sin, no death, no tears are there! It is impossible to truly paint a picture of heaven as the reality will be far more beautiful and glorious!

Heaven is a place for which we have to prepare now. “I hope your master is in heaven,” someone said to an old slave when slavery still prevailed in the southern United States. “I fear he is not there,” Ben replied, “for I never heard him speak of it. My master went where he pleased and made preparations for his journey weeks in advance, but I never saw him prepare for the journey to heaven.” How true those words were!

In the Word of God, heaven is referred to as a specific place. In John 14:2-3, Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”

Where He is! That is what makes heaven heaven. Where Jesus is, there is heaven! And what a glorious thought: “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).

We do not know exactly where heaven is to be found, yet it is spoken of as a specific place.

As Jesus ascended into heaven, “He was taken up and a cloud received Him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9).

Heaven is a holy place and therefore a place of happiness. “But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life” (Revelation 21:27). No sinner can enter there.

Heaven is a holy place,

Filled with glory and with grace,

Sin can never enter there;

All within its gates are pure,

From defilement kept secure, 

Sin can never enter there. 

If you hope to dwell at last,

When your life on earth is past, 

In that home so bright and fair,

You must here be cleansed from sin,

Have the life of Christ within, 

Sin can never enter there.

The God of heaven is holy, all the inhabitants of heaven are holy, and we must also be holy if we want to go to heaven.

Heaven is real. The Apostle Paul says: “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1). If I lose heaven, then everything is lost to me.

Heaven will be our eternal home. Home – what a wonderful sound! There we will be together with all the saints, having fellowship with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the prophets, Peter, James, John, and Paul, and with an innumerable multitude of all times. We will see our loved ones who have gone before and who will follow us. And the most glorious of all: we will see our Savior!

The Apostle Paul tells us that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us”( Romans 8:18). Therefore, in days of temptation and various difficulties, let us not despair but remember that our home is above, in the light, and sing with the poet:

Look up, my heart, to heaven, 

Look up to heaven high,

For this poor earth can never

Give peace or satisfy. 

In God’s own verdant pastures

There’s joy forever after.

True peace is there, that’s why

I look to heaven high.

O Lamb on Calvry’s hilltop,

Your presence is so dear.

Had I the wings of eagles,

I’d fly away from here.

I’d fly to heaven’s glory,

Where saints relay Your story,

True peace is there, that’s why,

I look to heaven high. 

E.M.

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