Heaven is where our personalities, what makes us who we are, find eternal grace, peace and rest. Where? Not above the clouds with wings and harps, that’s for sure.
Heaven is where we are, thankfully without our bodies, totally and completely absorbed into God’s purposes. What are they? No one really knows.
The only way to get a sense of it, therefore, is to move towards death, trusting not in what the kingdom of heaven might look like but trusting utterly in its king. His name is Jesus Christ.
Move towards death? That’s life. We are all doing just that, anyway. Inviting Jesus into our lives today and learning to dwell and grow in his Kingdom and in his presence prepares us, bit by bit, for easy and total absorption at our life’s end. With Jesus Christ we can grow into it.
Will all of us be accepted into this heaven? Here’s how it is — this same Jesus Christ will visit all of us in the grave (check John 5). If, as it says, we then recognise him for what he is – the Son of God – there will be no judging us. We are in. Safe and secure.
If we turn our backs on him throughout our lives and do not recognise him at death then we have successfully demonstrated that we have no wish to be in harmony with him. As a result, it will be impossible for him to perfectly absorb us into God’s purposes as we will not be in tune with him, We eliminate ourselves. No heaven. That is bad news and not worth the risk. No non-musician gets to play in an orchestra!
Will we recognise him when he visits us at death? The only way to discover the kingdom of heaven in advance, to work out whether or not it is something worth pursuing, is to welcome its king, Jesus, into our lives while we are still alive and grow up alongside him into his eternity.
That is why no one comes to the Father except through the Son, Jesus. This is the only way to heaven and the only way to find out what it will be like.
