My pastor’s sermon yesterday was about Heaven. He talked about what Heaven really is. It is a real place prepared for people who have a relationship with Jesus.
Christians have a dual citizenship – on earth and in heaven – and our citizenship in heaven ought to make us better people here on earth.
– Warren W. Wiersbe
He discussed the basic, probably mostly well-know fact among Christians, which is that we can’t get to Heaven by good works. But do we really believe that and live that way? What does our calendar, bank account, the way we use our natural giftings or talents say? Do we really live and act as though our relationship with Jesus is our most important priority?
Let heaven fill your thoughts instead. Because when you do, everything on earth gets placed in its proper perspective.
– Greg Laurie
When we are planning to take a vacation, we think and dream about it. We study the location we plan to travel to. We learn about the area-what activities we will do there, what it looks like, the route we will take to get there, etc. Much like planning for a vacation, our lives should reflect that we are planning to travel to Heaven.
Surely it is not wrong for us to think and talk about Heaven. I like to find out all I can about it. I expect to live there through all eternity. If I were going to dwell in any place in this country, if I were going to make it my home, I would inquire about its climate, about the neighbors I would have — about everything, in fact, that I could learn concerning it. If soon you were going to emigrate, that is the way you would feel. Well, we are all going to emigrate in a very little while. We are going to spend eternity in another world. … Is it not natural that we should look and listen and try to find out who is already there and what is the route to take? – D.L. Moody
We wait with anticipation and count down the days until our vacation. Everyone around us knows we are going on vacation! We wait with excitement, often impatiently! We go shopping for all necessary items we will need for the trip. We have a hard time focusing on much else because we are so looking forward to our vacation!
Our creator would never have made such lovely days and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal.
– Nathaniel Hawthorne
As we are preparing for our vacation, we don’t want to forget one of the most important and honestly very basic of things:
We have to make a reservation.
If we forget to do that, all the dreaming, planning, and preparing won’t matter at all.
How do you make the reservation? You call/email/communicate with whomever is in charge of the condo/hotel/house rental or whomever represents it. They give you instructions to follow in order to ensure you can stay there. If you don’t follow the instructions, you can kiss your vacation goodbye.
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither. – C.S. Lewis
The hills and valleys of Heaven will be to those you now experience not as a copy is to an original, nor as the substitute is to the genuine article, but as the flower to the root, or the diamond to the coal.
– C.S. Lewis
The cool thing about Heaven is we don’t have to pay for the trip. The cost has been covered by our Heavenly Father through Jesus.
So after the planning, preparing, making reservations, we have to wait for the day of departure to arrive. When that day arrives we set off for our glorious vacation. But did we consider another very important part of our trip? The question of Who will be there when we arrive?
That fact can totally make or break an earthly vacation. Will we be spending our vacation with our family, our friends, or both? If it is our family members, or people closest to us, we may have already had the opportunity to spend time with them beforehand, spend time in their presence. Often, we don’t have to wait until we arrived on site for our vacation to be in their presence.
The presence of God is what makes Heaven Heaven.
~Pastor Bill Bryan
As Pastor Bill stated, God’s presence is ultimately what makes Heaven Heaven. The coolest thing of all? We can experience the Lord’s presence right now! We don’t even have to wait to get to Heaven.
How do we experience God’s presence now? Talk to Him (pray), think about Him (reading His Word helps to do this), worship Him (verbal affirmations, singing, etc.)
Lucifer (Satan) was created to worship God. When he failed to do that, God created us. God gave us the free will to worship Him.
~Pastor Bill Bryan
The fact that our heart yearns for something Earth can’t supply is proof that Heaven must be our home.
– C S Lewis
Have you ever noticed that being in the presence of certain people fills our hearts with joy. It is really almost an indescribable experience. (Obviously this is not the case for all people we are around. 😉) Often we don’t care where the vacation destination is or what we are doing if we are spending time and communicating with our closest family or friends. The warmth, light, and love certain individuals exude touch and fill our own hearts with the same. But those feelings pale in comparison to the Holy Spirit and the light He fills us with.
Suddenly, I was enveloped in this brilliant golden light. The light was more brilliant than the light emanating from the sun, many times more powerful and radiant than the sun itself. Yet, I was not blinded by it nor was I burned by it. Instead, the light was a source of energy that embraced my being.
– Ned Dougherty
We honestly can’t even begin to imagine the wonders, beauty, and magnificence of Heaven. The grandeur of our trip to Heaven far outweighs any vacation we can take on Earth. Our purpose here on Earth is to truly worship God while traveling to Heaven and share this with others so they can do the same.
But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
1 Corinthians 2:9
Earth is only a pale version of heaven, not the other way around.
– Greg Laurie
This earthly body is slow and heavy in all its motions, listless and soon tired with action. But our heavenly bodies shall be as fire; as active and as nimble as our thoughts are. – John Wesley
We are just travelers passing through this Earth and all the vacations we enjoy here are such tiny, fractional bits of the glorious, wondrous Home of Heaven, where we will actually see Jesus face to face.
I’m so thankful His presence is with us even now. It gives us a small taste of all that is to come and is waiting for us in our eternal Home.
Your friend,
Tiffany
PS. We sang the following song during worship yesterday at church. I love it! Enjoy!
You’ve Got A Friend 
Amen!! Love this analogy!
And in Heaven we don’t take baggage either..and I love what you said about it not costing a thing, Jesus has paid the price in full!
Good stuff!!
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