Quick Musing On Heaven

I have heard over and over again from students back in Nebraska and here in San Diego that good people are going to heaven. The problem is that morally good people are some of the worst out there! We tend to view sin in terms of outward behavior rather than an inward reality. It's easier to spot sin in a guy getting drunk than a religious person's pride who judges that drunk.

This is the problem with our view of heaven.

If these type of “good” people are going to heaven, then heaven will not be heaven at all. Heaven will be filled with tons of morally good prideful people who do not worship God as their savior but worship themselves as being their own savior.

When someone comes up to me and says that most people are going to heaven (minus a few Hitler types) then I let them know that heaven won't look much different than the world we live in now.

What if heaven was a place where pride didn't exist? What if heaven was not place of boasting in self, but a place where Jesus was boasted in as being our savior?

That is the true heaven and most people don't want to go there. How can we know? Well, if people aren't willing to enter into gospel-centered communities here on earth – places they can come into, confess sin, and worship Jesus – why would they want to do that when they die?

God is a God of justice. He will let people have what they want.

If some people want a heaven where they deserve to be, filled with morally good people who think they deserve to be there as well, then God will let them have that. But, it will be hell since this place will be void of people who are humble and void of the presence of God.

If other people want a heaven where they don't deserve to be, and they trust in Jesus as their only hope to get there, God will grant them their request.

Hiding Behind Religion

Many of us are deceived into thinking that we are saved by either a) our religious knowledge, b) our religious acts, or c) our religious tradition.

RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE

“You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” - John 5:39-40

Jesus drops a bomb on the seminary students of his day. These young shooting stars, who had memorized large chunks of the Hebrew bible, had no idea that the bible was all about the Father's plan of saving the world through Jesus, not a self-help morality book that gives us strategic plan for saving ourselves.

RELIGIOUS ACTS

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'” - Matthew 7:21-23

This one will make your head hurt a little. So, ummm... some people doing religious things will enter the Kingdom of God (vs. 21) but other people doing religious things (vs. 23) are called evildoers? How do we clear up that fog?

Jesus is always about the heart. He makes the case that two people can do the same act but for different reasons because they have different heart motivations. So, how can you change your heart and its motivations? Well, you can't.

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” Ezekiel 36:26-27

There are two kinds of people:

• those who trust in their own heart and try to impress God with the religious acts that flow out of it
  
• those who ask Jesus for a heart transplant
  

Because of Jesus and the work on the cross, we can have a new heart with new desires. In the end, it is Jesus' religious act that justifies us.

RELIGIOUS TRADITION

“But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them... do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.” - Matthew 3:7-9

These religious nut jobs bragged about finding their identity in father Abraham. It would be the equivalent of a Catholic today bragging about Jesus giving the keys to Peter (him being the first Pope of the Catholic church). Catholics, even non-practicing ones, find a strong sense of worth by belonging to “The Church”. But Protestants do the same thing in different ways. They will hide behind the banner of “evangelical” or “bible-believing”. Or, I've heard some college students say that they were raised in a Christian home. They hide behind their parents' faith.

No matter who we are, we can't take refuge in religious labels. Putting on a name tag (I'm Catholic, I'm a Seminary student, I was raised in a Christian Family, I go to a Bible-believing Church, etc.) may fool the people around you but it won't fool God.

One day everyones' heart will be scanned and the bar code will not lie. The litmus test: Were we finding our identity, security, and hope in Jesus or in our religious knowledge, acts, or tradition?

A Heaven With No Clouds

Here are some commonly held assumptions about heaven among Christ followers:

*content is from the book Heaven by Randy Alcorn which is outlined bellow by Rick McKinley in This Beautiful Mess

We assume that heaven is a completely nonphysical experience. We'll float around and morph from place to place. We assume that heaven will feel unfamiliar and other-wordly.

Truth: The bible shows that heaven will be a restored physical world. Heaven will be a flourishing realm of city and nature, of people and conversations, of streets to walk down and good food to be enjoyed.

We assume that in heaven people will be spirits (nice ghosts, though, like Casper).

Truth: The bible tells us that we will exist in eternity in a body that has been "raised in glory" - a physical body similar to the resurrected Jesus - that will never again wrestle with sickness, want, pain, or aging.

We think of heaven as static. Harps and clouds and very loud sing-alongs. We tend to imagine a heaven where we will have no desire because everything will be perfect and we will have nothing to do.

Truth: You will have things to do, people to visit, meaningful relationships, fulfilling responsibilities. The bible shows us that we have been created in the image of God to be passionate about many things, to pursue, to enjoy, and to achieve. In heaven, there is a good chance that you'll be doing many of the same things you are doing now that you enjoy!

As we let the truth about heaven push aside our wrong assumptions, we'll find ourselves wanting heaven more and being defeated by earth less.

My note: This makes me excited to be a part of heaven even more. But it doesn't make me want to sit around and wait. It makes me want to pray even more that the Kingdom would come right here, right now, as Jesus prayed. We don't have to wait. We have the opportunity to see heaven crash into earth everyday. Let's get to it.