“Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven…” (Matt. 5:12, NKJV)
God means for heaven to be extraordinarily real to us. How else could we rejoice and be exceedingly glad about it? If heaven remains a vague, far away, pie in the sky concept, there is no way that its reality is going to produce solid, tangible joy in our lives.
A nebulous concept of our eternal home is the opposite of what He intends for us. In fact, the more we become familiar with the Bible, the more we will realize that His plan for us is to be passionately centered on heaven. He wants the place He is preparing for us to feel so close that we can almost taste it.
Consider the perspective these Scriptures offer us:
“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.” (2 Cor. 4:17-18, NIV)
- –> He wants us focused on, gazing at, and taken with what is unseen and eternal!
- –> Meditating on our glorious, eternal home in heaven fills us with courage. He desires for us to greatly prefer life there, to this temporary, inferior tent!
“Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Col. 3:2, NKJV)
- –> True discipleship means training our attention on the reality which is unseen by physical eyes; that which will last forever!
I want to challenge you today, if you haven’t already done so, to begin the journey of becoming fixated on heaven. Only Holy Spirit can open the eyes of your heart to see the invisible. He earnestly longs to liberate you from slavery…. from the tyranny of subjection to whatever negative circumstance that may be pressing on your five physical senses right now. He yearns to bring you into the magnificent freedom of living for what only faith can perceive.
Only He can empower you to live this way. Don’t let another minute go by without reaching out for this gift – ask Him for the power of spiritual sight, and you shall generously, abundantly receive.
“I keep asking… that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you…” (Eph. 1:17-18, NIV).
Ask, and then every single day for the rest of your life, keep on asking!
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Do you think about heaven often? In what noticeable ways has the reality of your eternal home impacted your earthly life?
Feeding On Jesus 
Oh yes Jesus, keep enlightening the eyes of our heart to know the hope to which we have been called. As to your questions, Jennifer:
Do you think about heaven often?
More often than I used to. But I am going to be asking Jesus to fix my eyes on the unseen and eternal even more than they have been. Thank you for this precious reminder from His Word to us.
In what noticeable ways has the reality of your eternal home impacted your earthly life?
It’s helped me be obedient to His calls to me, when these haven’t made sense to my physical eyes. Parting from friends has been one of the big things in that: He has grown my faith in His sovereign hand and peace (His eternal joining together), even in my and my friends’ earthly setting apart unto Him.
And it has also opened my hands to His will and thinking above my own. For example, in April, I spontaneously applied for a volunteer job, but thinking it was near our home. Turned out it was clear the other side of town. When I heard that I said to God: okay, I don’t want to harden my heart if this is Your design and You decided to let me think it was nearby because You knew I wouldn’t apply otherwise (because I have to bike and wasn’t sure my heart could take the extra strain of the long bike ride there and back). So, I went to meet the elderly woman and her daughter and asked God to make His will known in our midst. Oh I had to chuckle on the way home. Already in that first meeting there were SO many parallels in our lives and God’s (continuing) healing of our hearts. The funny thing for me was also how God affirmed the spontaneity of my application: He reminded me that He made me like that and that He loves that about me.
The verse I love in the context of eternity is this one (which has been on my heart a lot lately):
Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”
I have seen the truth of this over and over again. He always knows what He’s doing, and reveals it in His beautiful timing to us, growing love, trust and faith in us.
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As always, I so very much enjoyed reading your thoughts on this, Anna. That Scripture sticks out to me, too, reading it here from you. My daughter and I have been talking a lot lately about Prov. 3:5-6 and how He asks us to trust without understanding. But I hadn’t thought about this verse you are sharing in the context of our dialogues. I know I’ll be sharing this one with her soon! Thank you so much, dear sister. (By the way, my replies will probably be slower than average off and on through August because this is the season where we have teams coming down from the U.S. to partner with our ministry during summer missions. But I am always delighted when I get a chance to get in and read them; they are always so uplifting! Thank you for your patience meanwhile.) Sending you lots of love to today!
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BTW what you shared fits so beautifully with what I listened to this morning from Elisabeth Elliot:
Truly, it’s resting in God’s sovereign plan (eternity/heaven) – and His Presence and love – that gives us a heart of rest on earth. Yesterday, an elderly missionary friend from Finnland sent me the next installment of her and her family’s story and in it her brother heard God command him and his men to go below deck and sleep in the midst of a cyclone that ended up killing thousands. Her brother and his men went unharmed (as did she and her sister and her parents who were all on the path of the cyclone in different places) and woke to still waters. They weren’t commanded to pray for anyone, although God did assure them their family would be preserved also, but just to sleep in God’s care, trusting Him and His plan and purposes. It reminded me of Jesus sleeping in the storm also (which Elisabeth Elliot speaks of too). When we trust in the Father’s sovereign plan, we too can sleep – or like Shadrach, Mishach and Abendnigo – enter the fire, not knowing if it will cost us our earthly lives, but trusting in God’s eternal plan (even in our death), being unwilling to bow before anyone else but our God.
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Wow, what an amazing story, and an amazing caliber of faith! And I, too, so love Elisabeth’s writings. They were part of God’s early stirrings in my heart for the mission field, as a teenager 🙂
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Amen! Thank you Jennifer for your encouraging witness. Apostle Paul writes frequently about our faith being rooted in images that only it can see.
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You are welcome, Richard! (My replies are slow right now because we have missions teams down from the U.S.) May the Father strengthen and grow our faith more and more! Blessings to you, my brother 🙂
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Jennifer, thanks for catching up. I hope the mission teams accomplish much in the name of Christ. Grace and peace be with you and your family.
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Thank you so much for those blessings! They are gratefully received. Abundant grace be yours as well today, Richard 🙂
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Amen, I totally agree with you that we should seek out the Kingdom of Heaven and see Heaven as a very real place.
We are able to do this in our everyday lives, we look at holiday brochures and visualise being sat on the beach in the sunshine and our rewards are often exceeded, why then shouldn’t we be able to experience the same and even greater feelings about a life with our Heavenly Father and reflect and rest in his Goodness, Grace and Majesty.
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Exactly! You captured what I was aiming at precisely, makes me smile joyfully. Thank you, Paul!
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When I was a child, I heard someone referred to as “so Heavenly minded they’re no earthly good.” However, in my experience people who are most attentive to the anticipation of Heaven are also the ones most focused on trying to get everyone else to go there, as well as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the orphans and widows, and generally living out the Beatitudes more than those who are “activist” for temporary solutions.
The only problems come when someone assumes, “Well, I’m going to Heaven, so I don’t have to worry about anyone else.” THAT is not Father’s heart nor in His mind! Such folks may find themselves on the outside in Jesus’ parable in Matthew 7:21-27.
❤️&🙏, c.a.
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Wonderfully expressed, C.A. I have heard that expression too, and always had a similar observation as you. The more heavenly minded we are, the more the Father can manifest His Kingdom and will “on earth as it is in heaven” through our lives and prayers! (My replies are slower right now and will be off and on through August, as we have a number of missions teams from the U.S. here to partner with our ministry). Rich blessings to you today, I am grateful for your insights!
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Just this morning I listened to a podcast sermon from Daniel 7 by Pete Briscoe. He quoted verse 27 about what will happen at the end of time as we know it: “Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him” (Daniel 7:27). That’s us! WE are God’s holy people, set apart to fulfill God’s purpose. And the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to us. We’re going to have work to do, all for God’s glory. Quite amazing to contemplate!
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Yes, it is absolutely mind-blowing! Thank you so much for sharing that, Nancy, it edified my spirit with joy. (My replies are slower right now because we have some missions teams down partnering with our ministry through the end of August). Sending you lots of love in our Savior today!
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