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Assurance of Heaven
I believe that if there is one thing humankind across all continents, races and creeds have in common, it is that we are all curious about what happens after we die. If you Google “afterlife” you will get over 25 million hits! That's a lot of curiosity. Many people have great trepidation, fear and questions about what happens after death. For some, the answer to the questions they have is to try to extend their youthfulness and thereby extend their life and delay death. Of course, this is a futile endeavor since we all eventually must die. For millions of others the answer to the question of the afterlife is Heaven.
Heaven is believed by many to be a nebulous place where all good people go after they die. The media propagates this idea and presents an inaccurate depiction of heaven. A recent TV show depicts heaven as a place where mistakes can happen. The basis of the show is that a woman’s soul is mistakenly placed in someone else’s body and sent back to earth. The 2016 movie, “Miracles from Heaven,” tells the story of a sick girl who has what should have been a fatal accident but instead of dying when her soul leaves her body, she speaks to God and He sends her back to Earth cured of all disease. In the media it seems that no matter how terrible or evil people are in life, when they die they go to Heaven, the big house in the sky. But these depictions of Heaven are not supported by what we read in the Bible.
In the Bible, we read that Heaven is not a nebulous place. It is real. In John 5:24 Jesus explains that those who believe in the Father and in Jesus will have everlasting life--“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” Jesus explains what he means by everlasting life when he told his disciples that he was going to prepare a place for them after he died. “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” John 14:1-3.
The writer of the letter to the Thessalonians provides more information on the reality of the Heaven that Jesus promised. “For the Lord himself will descend from Heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” 1 Thess 4:16-17. These wonderful words should give hope and assurance to all who follow Jesus.
In the book of Revelation, John gives us more details of a real and tangible heaven: “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb… its gates will never be shut by day and there will be no night there.” Rev 21:22-25. No night=no darkness=no evil=no pain=everlasting life and joy. It’s hard to imagine any place better than this!
There are many other scriptures that reveal to us that Heaven is real, but there is one essential thing that we must know and understand. We cannot get to Heaven without Jesus. In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Do you know Jesus? If you seek assurance of Heaven, you need to get to know Him.
