Continuing from last week thinking about how we are called to be perfect… Last week I ended my note in a tough spot - wondering how it is going to be joyful to be perfect if I have to die to myself in every way in order to get there… Am I the only one that thinks like that? I doubt it, but a good way to test whether you do as well is to consider how you think about heaven. Do you think heaven is going to be boring? Maybe not at first. But after a thousand years or so of doing the same thing over and over? Do you enjoy thinking about heaven, or just doubt how it could be better than your life right now?
Here are a few thoughts to help us:
We do really need to think more about heaven. We need to study what Scripture says about it. It should captivate us and encourage us and challenge us. This will help us to keep a kingdom perspective - reminding us that that the Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of heaven, and it goes way beyond what we can see and touch and interact with on a daily basis. We use the phrase “too heavenly-minded to be of any earthly good” to describe people sometimes. I don’t know if that could actually ever be true about a person.
We need to understand what it means that we are called to be perfect, and that one day in heaven we will be perfect. This perfection has to do with our sinfulness. Clothed in Christ, we will be perfect in heaven from the moment we arrive in the sense that we are morally perfect because our sins are forgiven. But that doesn’t mean that we will never change from that point on. Most people think of heaven as unchanging and static. But we have seen through our Kingdom Parables series on Sundays that one key biblical principle is growth. There will never be a time in heaven when we will know all that can be known, or see or feel or experience all that can be enjoyed. Our growth in our understanding and our relationship with Christ will never end. And therefore, there will never be a boring moment!
More than anything else, heaven is described as being joyful. You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Psalm 16:11 How could eternal pleasures be boring? Sam Storms summarizes this better than I can: “We will constantly be more amazed with God, more in love with God, and thus ever more relishing his presence and our relationship with him. Our experience of God will never reach it consummation. We will never finally arrive, as if upon reaching a peak we discover there is nothing beyond. Our experience of God will never become stale. It will deepen and develop, intensify and amplify, unfold and increase, broaden and balloon. Our relishing and rejoicing in God will sharpen and spread and extend and progress and mature and flower and blossom and widen and stretch and swell and snowball and inflate and lengthen and augment and advance and proliferate and accumulate and accelerate and multiply and heighten and reach a crescendo that will even then be only the beginning of an eternity of new and fresh insights into the majesty of who God is!”
I hope you can find a few moments this week to consider this verse, and think about and pray about the blessing of heaven and our call to be perfect. Come tonight and ask a question during discipleship time if you have one. It would be great to see all of you there at 6:15!
Praying for you all!
Pastor Aaron
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