What Are You Looking Fordward To In Heaven?
posted by Jason Motte, M.Div., Student Pastor, CrossPoint Church in Argo, AL
Hello everybody! Jason Motte here. I am so excited about this week! The reason I am excited is because I will be filling in for Ryan on his blog! Now I am not quite sure what the right way to write a blog is, but I hope you enjoy and just in case you don’t, remember Ryan will be back in a few weeks!
Anyway, as most of you know, 29 of our high school students and adults just got back from a mission trip to Bay City MI. It was an incredible trip! I can’t begin to tell all the good things that went on and rest assured that you will be hearing more about the highlights of it this week as I write, but what I want to dwell on today is something that touched me on the trip before we ever got to Bay City. While we were on the bus during the 15 hour drive, being a little bit of an insomniac, I took the time to catch up on some reading while everyone else slept. One of the books I read was a compilation of sermons and writings by Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan lived in the 1700’s and is probably most famous for his sermon “Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God” and for sparking what has become known as the Great Awakening. I did get to read about the Great Awakening and also got to read the sermon “Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God” along with some of his other writings, but perhaps the one thing that he wrote that caught my attention the most was a sermon about heaven. Now when I have talked about heaven or heard it talked about even among Christian circles several things have always stuck out: streets of gold, mansions, the pearly gates of the city, a place where there is no more crying, hurt or pain, seeing loved ones who have gone on before us, knowing and understanding things that we have an insufficient knowledge of now, etc.
While these things are all going to be reality for the believer one day, Edwards points out that this heaven is overrated and will disappoint. He notes that the one thing about heaven that we leave off the traditional list is the very thing that makes heaven, heaven: the fact that we will be face to face in the presence of God forever. Without this heaven is really not that big of a deal. It would just be something that was exciting at the moment of arrival but would quickly fade into disappointment and discontentment. The one thing that we all have to live for hear on this earth as Christians is that one day we will put behind us all the pain, hard work, troubles, trials, persecutions and blindness that we now have and we will go to be in the presence of God and to enjoy Him forever as He has always intended. Heaven is not so much the lack of pain, problems or hurt as it is the gain of the unending presence of God. This is our portion in this life, the one thing that can get us through today and any day regardless of what we face. So my question today for us is what are you looking forward to in heaven?
3 comments:
Jason,
I don't know much about blogs and bloggers but I think you are doing great. Another thing; I don't have high schoolers so I am not in tune with what is going on with the teens in our church. But I have heard so many good things about what you are doing with them and I want to sincerely thank you for allowing the Lord to work through you to teach our teens what is important in life today.
OK, now to what you asked: what am I looking forward to in heaven?
Seeing and being with Jesus Christ. I don't care where He is, I just want to be there. I don't have to have the streets of gold and the mansions or anything else that may be promised, I just want to be where Jesus is. Knowing what He did for me and knowing that He is the risen Lord makes heaven exciting to me. Life is so uncertain today but I have hope because of Him. He gives me the peace to live each day for Him because of what He did for me.
Roxie Elliott
In reading thru your blog, I thought it interesting that you would write about that Edwards and the sermon Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God on its annivesary. That is probably the most famous sermon ever delivered, July 9, 1741. I agree with Roxie that nothing else will matter once we see Jesus. Gay Jones
Jason-
Great blogging. I am looking forward to the perfection I will find in Heaven. The worldly view of perfection that we are shown is so distorted to the point we really cannot fathom what it will look or feel like. Knowing that we cannot attain perfection in this life makes me even more curious as to how awesome it will be.
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