This is part of a series. You can read the introduction first or view all the posts together.

I’m happy to go to heaven because there won’t be human marriage there.

But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.
[Luke 20:35, ESV]

This is very counter-intuitive; I adore my husband and I love being married. A big part of me would be perfectly content with this life so long as I could keep living it with him. In fact, it’s my appreciation of the institution of marriage that makes me the more happier that it will be abolished!

The subject of marriage in heaven always brings to my mind the passage in Numbers 21, where the children of Israel sinned, and were bitten by firey serpents. Moses prayed, and the Lord told him to set a firey sepent on a pole for the people to look at it and live. The serpent was a “forerunner,” in a sense, of Christ, a connection which is made explicit in [bible]John 3:14[/bible]. And so… the people appreciated the serpent. In fact, they went on to actually worship it, according to [bible]2 Kings 18:4[/bible].

In other words, instead of taking God’s gift and allowing it to illustrate to their hearts the truth of their future Redeemer, they took the gift and utterly subverted its purpose, making an idol of it and forgetting its Giver.

Our marriage here is a gift for which God has delineated many reasons–but all throughout Scripture, He’s also been very clear that our marriages are of limited duration, a bond dissolved by death.

And yet there is one marriage which God tells us will be enacted in glory:

Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready.
[Revelation 19:7, ESV]

I can’t even begin to contemplate exactly what that means, a marriage between an everlastingly perfect God and His church, but I do know that God chose to use the word marriage. Not friendship, not master-slave, not equals, but “marriage.”

Which means that our marriages now, wonderful though they may be, have an awful lot in common with the serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness. It’s a gift, and it should be helping our hearts to begin to understand the upcoming marriage of Christ and the Church. (I like the way John Piper puts it: “the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display.”)  God has graciously given us a foretaste of what the word marriage means, but we don’t yet understand it in full, because the marriage for which He’s collectively preparing us isn’t yet fulfilled.

It’s an immensely exciting thing to know that as much as I love Seth and love being his wife, this “marriage” that I adore is only an imperfect model of what’s going to be in heaven. And who in their right mind would prefer the imperfect and incomplete to the perfect and fulfilled?

This is part of a series. You can read the introduction first or view all the posts together.

Yes, I’m a few days late with this one! I thought I’d get more done on the weekend, but it turns out I did less.

A few weeks ago, we read 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 in church:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
[ESV]

Setting aside the escatological context here, the point Paul is making is don’t grieve, we’ll be caught up together to be with the Lord. I find it really amazingly gracious that this passage exists. Isn’t it enough to know that when we die, we get to be with God? Why are we worried about the fate of other believers? But Paul points out that one little word: together. With each other! The whole passage is phrased not as an exhortation to not be worried about our own deaths, but rather not to be worried about those who are already dead in Christ! I want to quote John Gill, as he describes the state of the lost person whose loved one has died:

“[The Gentiles,] having no notion of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, had no hope of ever seeing their friends more, but looked upon them as entirely lost, as no longer in being, and never more to be met with, seen, and enjoyed; this drove them to extravagant actions… [instead Christians should have] the sorrow of those who have a good hope of the future well-being of their dear relatives…”

Matthew Henry adds:
“It will be some part of their felicity that all the saints shall meet together, and remain together for ever; but the principal happiness of heaven is this, to be with the Lord, to see him, live with him, and enjoy him, for ever.”

I don’t want to under-emphasize the second part of that–the principal and all-encompassing joy of heaven is God, not “Christian fellowship,” but the fellowship aspect is also underscored in this verse. Ephesians 2:19 says “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” We aren’t just a single citizen all by our lonesome in heaven, we have fellow citizens. We’re members of one body. That’s what we were created to be. 1 John 1:7: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” If we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

I don’t know exactly what fellowship is going to look like in heaven. So many of the verses that pertain to fellowship now have to do with encouraging one another not to fall into sin, how not to sin against each other, etc., and since we won’t be sinning in heaven, it seems logical that our fellowship will be likewise perfected. 1 John 1:3 seems like it will still be entirely applicable; “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” And Colossians 3:16, “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Sometimes fellowship isn’t telling each other “new” things, it’s simply dwelling on God and worshipping Him together. Sometimes fellowship is listening to a fellow believer describe how they’ve been blown away by God’s grace, and getting tears of amazement in our eyes because it is such an amazing thing to have our hearts drawn to worship together.

Another reason I really like this idea of heavenly fellowship is because it’ll be perfect. No angry debates about whether Doctrine X or Doctrine Z is the “true” way, no brokenness over someone’s failure to see some truth clearly, no wondering whether we said something correctly or arrogantly, and no worrying over whether we’re right in our dogmatism. None of our falleness.

God didn’t choose only one person to draw to Himself, and He didn’t tell us to go through our lives without any contact with each other. And in heaven, yes, we’ll be worshipping God–we’ll be worshipping Him together.

This is part of a series. You can read the introduction first or view all the posts together.

I want to begin by amending my introductory post with another verse further down in the passage that should have come to mind (and didn’t):

I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.
[Philippians 1:23-24, ESV]

Paul’s attitude is shining so clearly here: to be with Christ is far better. Not just ordinary better, but far better. But to remain is more necessary, and so we do–but the division causes Paul to be “hard pressed,” or, as the KJV puts it very poetically, “I am in a strait betwixt two.”

Okay, now onto today’s reason why I want to go to heaven. I really had trouble with this post, partly because I’m not in a very writey mood, and partly because the reason that keeps coming to the forefront of my mind I want to save until the last.

But today: I want to go to heaven because it’s my home.

…having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth…. seeking a homeland… they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
[Hebrews 11:13-14]

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
[Philippians 3:20-21]

In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
[John 14:2]

Usually when I read the Philippians verse, it makes me think my “real” citizenship is not to the United States. Which is true, but it’s rather missing the point of the verse. We are citizens of heaven. God has prepared a city. Christ left Earth to prepare a place for us. Heaven is our homeland. Heaven has many rooms.

In other words, heaven is the perfect place for us. It’s ideal. It’s prepared for us by a God who knows us better than we know ourselves. It’s a world without any of the fallen trappings of Earth–no corrupt governments, no wars, no hunger, no politics, no murders, no danger, no cemetaries, no hospitals, no democracies… the list goes on. When we’re in heaven, we can finally be “patriotic!” Our “government” will never do anything wrong or fail its citizens, because our King is perfect.

And–the idea of God Himself “preparing” something personally for us leaves me utterly speechless. I wish I knew a bigger word than awe.

This is part of a series. You can view all the posts together.

Last night I was writing an email and trying to articulate something I’ve been struggling with lately:

I really want to get to the point where it’s not just that I know that God is in control of whether I live or die, and to know that whichever happens is good, but to get to the point where “to live is Christ, and to die is gain”… where the only reason I want to stay here is to do the work God sets out for me, but apart from that every other atom in me is just dying to go home. […] I need to be more world-weary and heaven-happy, so that instead of just refusing to allow myself to worry I actually have no inclination to.

And then, as I was trying to go to sleep, it occurred to me that I’ve never really studied heaven very much, and perhaps the reason I’m not overly keen to go there is because I don’t really know what it is. Or I know, but it’s not internalized and familiar to me.

So… lots of bloggers, as part of New Year’s resolutions, are doing such-and-such in their blog every day for a certain amount of time. And I want to do sort of the same thing, except with the goal of cultivating heavenwardness in my heart. Other circumstances not extenuating, over the next ten days, I’m going to write a post a day focusing on one reason why heaven is gonna be great. They’re not going to be the Ten Most Important, or really anything very much–just simple reasons that touch my heart and make me want to go and meet my Savior face-to-face.

(As an aside: while it might seem like the reason I’m obsessing over heaven is because of the whole cancer thing, the reality is that my lack of perspective on the subject has been bothering me for years. I could have written the paragraph above just as easily three years ago as last night.)