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

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Thus goes my favorite verse from one of my favorite hymns, and the source for today’s title. (By the way–if you don’t know the story behind that hymn, it’s worth reading.)

After the last entry, I hope it doesn’t sound contradictory for me to say that I want to go to heaven so that my faith shall be sight! Hebrews 11:1 is the ever-famous “faith verse”: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” In other words, faith is, by very definition, not-yet-fulfilled. 1 Corinthians 5:6b-7a makes this explicit: “We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.” We aren’t walking by sight yet. But the verse in Hebrews doesn’t say “Now faith is something we hope for, the desire of things not seen” — instead it uses words like assurance (in the Greek, literally, a “setting under”, i.e. a support) and conviction (also translated proof, or evidence; the only other occurrence of the word is in [bible]2 Timothy 3:16[/bible], “All Scripture is…profitable…for reproof“). Faith, then, is that which enables us to “know” the things we don’t “know.”

There’s a common youth-group-type illustration that says faith is what you have in the instant before you sit on a chair: you have faith that the chair will hold you. Honestly, I think that definition comes a little short–because you don’t know that the chair will hold, you just assume that it will (and even that assumption is based on external evidence and personal experience). Faith, according to Hebrews, is much stronger than that. Faith assures. Faith convicts. In Ephesians 3:12, Paul explains that through our faith in Christ, “we have boldness and access with confidence.”

Faith is sufficient for action. But our faith here is not at its maximum: we can grow in our faith ([bible]2 Timothy 2:22[/bible], [bible]2 Thessalonians 1:3[/bible]).

In heaven, those things we hope for will be! And those things we have not seen will be seen! As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:10,12: “When the perfect comes, the partial will pass away… Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” We’ll be with the Lord, and we’ll be walking by sight! Our faith will be perfected.

Strong’s Greek Dictionary translates pistos (faith) as “objectively trustworthy,” which fits perfectly with Hebrews 11 and with the observation that God Himself is faithful–faith is that which convinces us that the things we haven’t yet seen are trustworthy, and clearly God is Himself the epitome of trustworthiness. In heaven, then, we have another cause to rejoice, not only in the perfecting of our own faith, but in the faithfulness of God! We will at last observe that the truths He makes known to our hearts now through the Holy Spirit and through Scripture are true… we will observe through all eternity how trustworthy our God has been to us!

Tags: cultivating heavenwardness faith ten reasons why I want to go to heaven theology verses

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

One of the passages in the Bible that I’ve always struggled with, not theologically so much as emotionally, is where Thomas sees the resurrected Christ:[bibleblock]John 20:24-29[/bibleblock]The last verse refers to us, of course, and so it ought to be comforting… but how many times do we fall into the fallacy of thinking that if only I could see with my own eyes, I would believe? Not necessarily salvation-wise, but maybe thinking that if Jesus was sitting here next to me, I would automatically do something differently. I remember the summer that I went to camp, we had a big powwow and one of the counselors told this story about Jesus coming to visit at a person’s house, in person, and it totally revolutionized the person’s life. The idea was for us to visualize being in that situation ourselves and see “what books we’d be ashamed to have on our shelves,” so to speak.

I’ve come to the conclusion, though, that if Christ came to my house and stayed a while… I’d still be a sinner. Maybe even things wouldn’t be very much different. Just consider the disciples: they saw Christ every day and they still managed to screw stuff up. Peter was face to face with Christ when he decided the wind was more fearsome than Christ was able ([bible]Matthew 14:28-31[/bible]). I don’t see how my eyes, which are so easily deceived anyway, would do a better job of convincing me of the reality of Christ than the Spirit of God working in my heart does. So when I say, “I want to go to heaven so I can see Jesus,” I don’t mean so that I’ll know “for sure” that He’s real. Seeing Jesus is an end in itself.

When I read the Thomas passage, it, more earnestly than any other passage in Scripture, makes me long to see my Savior. That’s explicitly what Thomas was doing; it’s the whole point, the reason for the exchange. And oh how badly I want to be in that situation as well! The very idea takes my breath away. I know beyond a doubt that I was created to worship God, if for no other reason than the vehemence of the emotional reaction the idea of actually seeing Him causes within me. It isn’t “rational,” from the world’s perspective, to experience an intense longing to meet someone we’ve never “met,” but there it is. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.” Can we read those words without intense excitement stirring in our hearts?

And in heaven, that anticipation will be fulfilled: we’ll see Christ! In person! I’m going to see my Redeemer face-to-face at last! [bible]1 John 3:2[/bible] says “we shall see Him as He is”! As He is. Is there anything more amazing?

Tags: cultivating heavenwardness special tag no 2 ten reasons why I want to go to heaven theology verses

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?

Tags: cultivating heavenwardness marriage married happiness seth ten reasons why I want to go to heaven the church theology verses

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.

Tags: cultivating heavenwardness fellowship ten reasons why I want to go to heaven theology verses

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.

Tags: cultivating heavenwardness ten reasons why I want to go to heaven theology verses

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.)

Tags: cultivating heavenwardness dying memes ten reasons why I want to go to heaven theology

I still have fleeting moments where I’m really truly afraid. They’re less fleeting than I would like; wherever the balance is between “be anxious about nothing” and a normal instinct for self-preservation, I’m far too much on the anxious side.

Yet: “Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:8. Scripture is very clear — in more places than just this one verse — that Christians are to live as though this life is not something to be grasped at. Living is not preferable to dying. Living should not be more comfortable than dying. Or, to paraphrase John Piper, we should not feel at home here.

These past few weeks I have been experiencing a sort of second shock, I think, about the “whole cancer thing.” It’s like there was the initial moment, that first awful and glorious week, and then a long respite of relative ease… and now I’m doing radiation and trying to figure out working and health insurance and future plans and realizing that my life will never, ever be the same. There’s the scars and tattoos that will be there forever, and the reddish tinge to my skin that will soon develop into a full-fledged burn that will take a year to fade. And I am starting to hurt, physically, and I’m honestly having a really difficult time not feeling sorry for myself. All of this is coalescing into the dread realization that I have cancer, and that while the statistics are in my favor, they’re by no means certain, and since God is in control anyway, statistics are fairly irrelevant.

These past few weeks have been almost as difficult emotionally as the first week in May. Maybe even more difficult. There have been times when I’ve been quite literally on the edge of falling apart — I think this is much exacerbated by my physical condition (which is not so good right now), but it’s there and I’m having to learn how to trust God even more. It’s harder, in some ways, because it’s not as easy to find the energy to actually think about things, so my sinful reactions are coming more to the fore.

And in these dark nights of mine, the one thing God keeps bringing me back to is that I am just passing through. I will be here and I will keep breathing until He is finished with having Julie Fuller here. Not a moment more or less. And that is comfort: I can trust that all my purpose here will be completed, not cut a moment short, and that He has planned the final moment with precision and perfection. My problem and the reason for my sinful worry is that I get caught up in my purpose instead of His. Hebrews 11:13-16, out of the “faith” chapter, has been increasingly convicting to me: “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, 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.”

Strangers and exiles on the earth. Seeking a homeland. Not thinking of the land from which we’ve gone out. Desiring a better country. This is me, too! In the world but not of it. This body in which I reside is fallen and sinful and tainted and scarred and to be rid of it is to be with Christ. To be rid of it is to be freed from sin! Why on earth am I not begging God with all my heart to make it so?

The answer is very obvious: I am much too infatuated with the things of this world. Good things, like marriage and family. But even the highest of these things is secondary to my calling as a child of God. Seth and I are married, yes, but we do not “belong” to one another; our deepest sense of ownership is possessed by God and God alone. We are here for the furtherance of His kingdom, and we are just sojourning here briefly until we join Christ and all the saints in heaven. Marriage is a beautiful and wonderful and ever so fun and enjoyable gift, but it’s an earthly gift. It’s a precursor to the ultimate wedding of Christ and the Church, and precursors melt away when their fulfillment is complete. We are to rejoice in that! If I am so tied to my husband that the thought of leaving him to be with Christ causes me to stumble, then we’ve tied ourselves together with the wrong sort of thread! You can’t take Christ out of your definition of love, and real love is never about clinging to something when it isn’t yours to cling to. And eternally, I have no right to cling to Seth. He is God’s; I am God’s; God can render us asunder at His pleasure.

I wish I would, with the people of Hebrews 10:34, gladly abandon these things I hold dear with equanimity because I know I have “a better possession and an abiding one.” That is the promise we have been given, and we have the God Who orchestrates every atom in the universe as Guarantor. That future “possession” of ours is everything we were created to desire, perfectly suited for us in every way, the summation of everything we yearn for, and the beginning of things we have not even begun to glimpse. This is through a glass darkly; that is face-to-face. Face to face. There is no thought of heaven that shakes me as much, that thrills me and terrifies me and that makes me hunger as nothing else.

But it is one thing to know, and another to live and to trust. I am learning — very slowly — that I must have the spirit of a sojourner, who stays in a strange country for a time and for a purpose, but never loses sight of the homeland, and who waits, every day, for word that the return ship has arrived in port, and that soon she will be going to the home she’ll never have to leave. Coming to a point where that is real, day-to-day, internalized, and instinctual is so infinitely much more important than getting better. I am not and have not been such an alien to this world.

I am so thankful that God does not abandon us to wallow in our misery and try to make sense of things on our own. He has never left me in the darkness, and I am continuing to see how He is using this “awful” circumstance for my greater good, and how He continues to teach me to praise Him for these things that my fallen self finds so unpraiseworthy.

Tags: cancer dying more coherent rejoice always special tag no 2 the sovereignty of God theology verses