A great future awaits

If you have ever been excited for an event, a trip, or spending time with a person or people, you imagine what it will be like. We can have great excitement and anticipation for what is waiting for us in heaven. Imagining what heaven might be like can grow our relationship with God as we seek to better known His love and His Word in the Bible. Pastor Randy Alcorn provides a description of what heaven might be like based on his study of Bible verses about heaven.

“People smiling and joyful, not angry, depressed, and empty. If you’re not in a particularly beautiful place, close your eyes and envision the most beautiful place you’ve ever been—complete with palm trees, raging rivers, jagged mountains, waterfalls, or snowdrifts.

Think of friends or family members who loved Jesus and are with him now. Picture them with you, walking together in this place. All of you have powerful bodies, stronger than those of Olympic decathletes. You are laughing, playing, talking, and reminiscing. You reach up to a tree to pick an apple or orange. You take a bite. It’s so sweet that it’s startling. You’ve never tasted anything so good. Now you see someone coming toward you. It’s Jesus, with a big smile on his face. You fall to your knees in worship. He pulls you up and embraces you.

At last, you’re with the person you were made for, in the place you were made to be. Everywhere you go, there will be new people and places to enjoy, new things to discover. What’s that you smell? A feast. A party’s ahead, and you’re invited. There’s exploration and work to be done—you can’t wait to get started.”

The greatest story of your life will just be beginning when your time on earth is complete. In response to God’s great love we can strive to follow God’s will and to show His wonderful love to others. The world’s greatest future is promised to all who believe in God as their Savior!

The ending of the last book in the Chronicles of Narnia series, The Last Battle, provides a great outlook on what awaits us in heaven. Following this are the words of 1 Peter 1:3-9, which are excellent to read and meditate on often to keep a heavenly perspective in our thoughts and words.

“And for us this is the end of all the stories and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them, it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all the adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page. Now at last they were beginning Chapter 1 of the great story which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
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​Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:3-9.
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We can keep heaven in mind as we go about our day to faithfully serve God and to give glory to Him so that more people can share in the wonderful inheritance in heaven. This is an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. Let God’s great love and your great future guide your life! Heaven is real! God’s promises are true! The greatest future awaits!