Thought for Today
Psalm 121:1 I lift up my eyes to the hills-- from where will my help come? 2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
Isaiah 51:6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats; but my salvation will be forever, and my deliverance will never be ended.
John 14:2 In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
Where is heaven? Where are all those dwelling places which Jesus promised? What sort of dwelling places are they? Apartments? Condos? McMansions? Having lived my life in and around large cities, what is the population density of heaven? Will I be surprised by those I encounter in heaven, astounded that Jesus came to take them there . . . will they be surprised to see me arrive (assuming that I do)?
When I was young, I imagined heaven as somewhere up in the sky. As I grew and studied, I never gave too much thought to which layer of our atmosphere contained heaven. Was it in the troposphere where we live? Maybe it was in the stratosphere which includes the ozone layer. Or maybe the mesosphere where so many meteors burn up. Possibly the thermosphere where auroras occur and many of our satellites orbit? Was heaven in the exosphere where our atmosphere transitions to outer space?
At some point, as I studied mathematics, I began to wonder whether heaven might actually be in some other dimension, some other reality or an alternate universe. Location, however, does not really answer any of my questions about those dwelling places in God’s eternity. Am I unusual in wondering about the nature of heaven? Does anyone else wonder about the details?
When people ask me about heaven and its nature, I often jokingly remark that regrettably the 15-minute video presentation was lost during Watergate along with those White House tapes. That’s really not very helpful for them or for me, but it does deflect the unanswerable question. How can we as God’s creatures, God’s children, understand the eternal abode of our Creator God?
Maybe a more important issue to consider is what we might do with any detailed specifications we could attain, much less understand. Would knowing the exact location of heaven, the design specifications for those many dwelling places change anything about the way we are living currently? Would we modify our thoughts and actions, our behaviors, if we found out that our own, individual dwelling place was a hovel? Or, a McMansion?
I believe our focus should be on Jesus’ promise, especially the promise of abiding in eternity with Jesus and with God. Our God-given resources of life itself, our talents, our physical, mental and spiritual resources are meant for us to use in accomplishing God’s plan and purpose for this world and this reality.
The longer I have lived, the more I have studied and read, the more my mind and my life have become focused on those Bible verses I so often reference here and in my sermons. I often mention Micah 6:8 and the impact it first had and still has on me. Hopefully, we all remember the first time we read John 3:16. Did you, like me, get a gold star for memorizing John 3:16 in Sunday School or Vacation Bible School?
There is a panoply of my own, personal impactful verses: the entire 5th chapter of Matthew; Luke 10:27; the entire first chapter of John; Romans 8:36-39; 1 Corinthians 13:13; Ephesians 2:8. Of course, as I try to make a list, I realize there are as many impactful verses for me as there are verses in the Bible.
Think about the verses of scripture you find most impactful. Make your own list. Let those verses answer your own questions about faith, salvation, heaven and eternity. Let those verses drive how you live your own life here and now. Let the words of the Bible guide and direct your thoughts and actions.
Read your Bible, let scripture drive the life you live, trust God,
Pastor Ray