I’ve been thinking about heaven a lot lately. Maybe it’s because that was one of the Bible lessons during VBS which VA campus just finished up last week. It’s always been fun to think about what heaven would be like. We do get a glimpse of what it looks like in Revelation, but a lot is left to the imagination. Jesus said that he would be preparing a room for us in heaven. I wonder sometimes what my room would look like. What would be in it? Would all our favorite things be there? I shared this with the VBS kids, but I hope I have a bowling alley in my room. Since we’ll be perfect in heaven, I would be averaging 300. I think that would be great!
Maybe I’ve been thinking about heaven lately because of the recently discovered earth 2.0 AKA Kepler-452b. It is apparently very similar to earth. It orbits around a G-2 star like our sun. Its orbit is a little longer than ours though at 385 days. Its distance from the sun is similar to earth. It is bigger than earth and it has more land than it does water. It is also older than the earth. When I read about this, immediately I said to my wife “What if this is the ‘new’ earth that God had in mind when he told us that there would be a new heaven and a new earth?” And my wife looked at me and sarcastically said “Yeah, and we were able to discover it.” She found it hard to believe that we could discover something like that since God is God and we’re only human. But I said to her “Yes, we discovered it but its 1,400 light years away so it’s impossible for us to reach it anyways.” This is just my thought of course. There is no validity to what I said. However, how funny would it be IF it was true? God works outside of time so he could have already created this “new” earth while he created everything else, and it would still be “new” to us.
We had a pastoral staff retreat this past Monday and Tuesday and we were going through the book of Acts together. In Acts 14:22, we see Paul and Barnabas encouraging and strengthening the disciples. They say this “We must go through many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.” I asked myself why do we have to go through hardships? And I was reminded that it’s because this land here is not our home. We are only immigrants while we’re living here on earth. Our citizenship is in heaven. Many of us come from immigrant families and know what a challenge that is compared to friends of ours whose parents were born here in the USA. We go through hard times here because our parents are citizens of South Korea. It’s always difficult to live in a land that is not your own.
Maybe that’s really why I think of heaven. While here on earth, we will endure lots of hardships, but we all know that heaven is a perfect place. It has no disease. No tears. No pain. What an awesome place! As I read that verse in Acts, it really comforted me and reminded me that this is not my home. I should expect lots of hardship living in a foreign land. No one knows exactly what heaven will be like and we will have to wait to find out, but we do know it’s going to be a wonderful place.
Whenever you are going through hardship here on earth, just think about heaven. Think about spending all of eternity in a perfect place just worshiping God all day long. Remember that we are only immigrants here on earth while we wait for our time to go back home.
From Pastor Eugene’s Heart
August 23, 2015