Heaven Is For Real?

I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie “Heaven is for Real,” and I don’t know what you think of the testimony of a young boy who testifies that heaven is for real because he’s seen it.

What I do know is that there are a lot of misconceptions about heaven. So many descriptions and pictures of heaven are so far off from what the Bible teaches us is actually true about heaven. We’re all familiar with the cartoon pictures of a man sitting all alone on a cloud playing a harp. He has the expression of someone marooned on a desert island with absolutely nothing to do.

Some people believe that heaven is going to be an unending church service. Now, I have to be honest with you, I love church, but the thought of an unending church service doesn’t really get me excited about heaven.

We have settled on an image of the never-ending sing-along in the sky, one great hymn after another, forever and ever, amen. Really? Forever and ever? That’s it? That’s the good news?

We think these thoughts and sigh, feeling guilty that we aren’t more “spiritual.” We think, if we were just more spiritual than we would be more excited about the never-ending sing-along in the sky. I love to sing, and I hope that somehow in heaven I’ll have the singing voice of Bono. However, not only is that not exciting, it isn’t what the Bible teaches us about heaven.

Heaven is a place where God makes things right. The life we experience now is not God’s original plan for us. When mankind invited sin - disobedience to God - into our experience, the world was tainted by the ugliness of sin. Heaven is a place where no sin exists.

One of the ways the Bible describes heaven is in the book of Revelation, where it says: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away … Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

This was written by a man named John, who wrote the book of Revelation and testifies to us that heaven is for real.

What will heaven be like? It will be exactly what God promised: A resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the resurrected Christ on a resurrected earth. It will be as God intended for us from the beginning. Because the Bible says that Satan will be bound, there will be no more influence of sin in our lives. We’ll finally get the life that God so desires for us. It’ll be heaven.

Learn more at www.newlifeonline.com or follow Steve Lingenfelter on Twitter, @stevOLL.