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

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