The Devotional – 1417 – Time verses Eternity

The Devotional – 1417 – Time verses Eternity;

Proverbs 3:19 – The LORD by wisdom founded the earth (time); by understanding He established the heavens (eternity).

 

 Comments and challenges

Ever notice in scripture that heaven is often referred to as plural, but in reference to the earth there is only ONE. Psalm 19:1-4 is a good example of this. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament (work of His Hands) shows His handiwork. Day after day utters speech, and night after night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line (measuring rod) has gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world, in them He has set a tabernacle (tent) for the sun.

With the secular teaching of our current day, the world over is confused about heaven. (Dr. David Jeremiah explains in one of his devotionals that we; that is believers in Christ are no better at understanding heaven than the unbelieving). The media provides us with a “cartoonish” idea of what heaven is and many young adults are prone to view it as a never-ending church service or a vapory world with harps and halos.

Our home is about forty miles from our church, so our drive usually takes a good forty-five minutes; now we are not complaining about this, it is just the truth; but in this there is a short story. Often as we travel the roads the subject of moving closer will pop-up. Of course being close would be great and if God opens that door we will go through it. But we travel with the anticipation of what to expect, this encourages our soul. We have knowledgeable thoughts of the hymn sing on Saturday, the Adult Teaching Class and of course the Sunday Morning Service to follow.

The rub; we know what to expect when we come to church! The saints we will meet, the message we anticipate to hear. The personal emotional moments of hymns that speaks to our soul like; the thoughts of the resurrection of our Savior, of our own personal crossing over Jordan to the: “promised land”, the anticipation of the rapture (translation of the church). The communion of being with the people of God and not fearing the momentary light affliction we often experience from the world outside the church family setting.

But folks to our shame, many of us know so little about where heaven is and what we are to expect. As we knowingly advance to our church with knowledge, we should be anticipating the moment we arrive we arrive in heaven in the same manner. What to expect and where heaven is; let me just add this; if you plan on getting to heaven by GPS or if you do not know where you will be resting there, you have missed the mark. You cannot go there by the way of the world and you will not get there by any future or past effort on your part.

The Holy Bible is very clear about this; notice John 14:1-6 – "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know." Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

Therefore we should not be worried, confused or unknowledgeable about heaven as a real place where the children (saints) of God go to live; eternally! Note too that Jesus says, “I go to prepare a place for you” literally “I go to prepare dwellings for you”. Now there is this one prerequisite which is affirmed in Hebrews 9:28 – so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. Now this dwelling is not made with earthly, temporal materials or earthly hands… note: 2 Corinthians 5:1 – For we know that if our earthly house (physical body), this tent is destroyed, we have a building form God. A house not make with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Now as my wife and I commute to church and as our conversation grows with the events of being there we do not mention over 500 times the description of church or of our brothers and sisters there. Yet if you were to search out in the Bible of what heaven is, where heaven is and who are those in heaven when you get there; that there are more than 500 sections of scripture that give us ample information. Dr. Jeremiah goes on to say this; “Our Redeemer is in heaven; our relationships are there, friends who have gone before us; our resources are there, the investments we've made in eternity; our residence is in heaven, our rewards and riches”. We should think about this often…

I know that if we were to think about the journey to heaven; we would be spending more time drawing nearer to the place where “Holiness and Righteousness IS” We will be spending some time looking at this over the next few days, if I could just keep on writing I would because I am so excited about this. One familiar passage is that of 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 which we have looked at and commented on recently, but the apostle was restricted from explaining his brief visit to the third heaven.

So we will turn our heart and thoughts to the Revelation and look a bit more intensely at what the apostle John saw since he was instructed to write what he saw in a book; the book we call, Revelation. Imagine that, that among other important things about the future of the world, God also explains the where, the what and the who’s who in the third heaven. If you intend to be there, “you’s and ya’ll” should know what it will be like, with no north or south conflict.