Janet Ray Memorial Series: You Might Not Want To Go To Heaven
Heaven is tricky. For most American it exists in our minds as some sort of abstract place where decent people go to live in perpetual retirement doing whatever it was that they liked to do on earth. When people die, we say things like “Well, he’s up their playing golf with Jesus.” or “She has all the kittens she could ever want up there!”
This, the bible would say, is not what heaven is like. Heaven is for people who love God. Not people who believe in Him or Jesus or say that Jesus died for their sins or lived decently or went to church. The type of people I’m talking about are people who have deep affection for God. They long for Him, yearn to know Him more, delight when they spend time with Him, etc. This is tricky because you can’t muster affection. It is a result of a new heart that one receives when he becomes a Christian.
Indeed, there are many people who have prayed the prayer or believe in Jesus and are good Christian people that go to church but have no true affection for God, no desire to know Him more. For a lot of us, God is sort of an accessory to our lives, a trump card for when the normal amusements and comforts are spent, fire insurance in case something bad happens, and a way to not have to think much about what happens after death. This type of person generally assumes that he will get into heaven because he was financially wise, didn’t cheat on his wife, didn’t steal anything big, wasn’t an addict of any kind, etc.
Grandma Ray is in heaven right now. Not because of anything she did or said, but because she loved God and deeply longed to be with Him. In a book that she filled out about her life, she answered the question “Where do you go when things are bad?” Her answer was to her kitchen table where her bible would lay open and she would seek God for comfort and strength. We all have something we go to. It might a friend, spouse, food, alcohol, TV, etc. Grandma pressed into God. This desire to seek Him was evidence of her new heart, a regenerated heart that God made new with the death and resurrection of His Son.
Heaven will be about God. It will not be about us or our earthly hobbies. God is So Good, infinitely complex and delightful, that we will spend eternity knowing him more and more. That is why heaven can and will go on for eternity – because it will take eternity to know everything about God! God is so much bigger than I often think of Him. There is no bottom the the joy we can find in Him. Literally for forever we can delve into deeper and better pleasures in Him!
That is what Heaven is! Getting more of God for eternity. This is why some of us probably won’t want to go there. If we want things to be about us and what we want to do and to continue chasing flickering shadows of pleasure, then heaven would not be fun.
CS Lewis describes an interesting take on hell in his book The Great Divorce. In “The Gray City” I think he calls it, you can imagine anything into existence. Any house, any trinket and there is infinite space. The bummer is that the stuff is not fully material. Houses don’t really keep you dry from the perpetual rain. Stuff breaks easily because time goes so fast. The result is that the city is huge and sprawling and empty because eventually everyone’s selfishness causes a fight and people just move and create new places to live. He talks about two guys that wanted to go see Napoleon. They walked for decades to get to where he lived and when they got there, they found him in a massive house, alone, walking back and forth muttering to himself.
The afterlife is merely a continuation of what our trajectory was here on earth. Those that long for God, go to be with him. Those who long for themselves to be praised and to find little selfish pleasures, get it. I mean there are more things involved than that, but that is the gist of it.
I apologize if this seems like a pointed or ranty post. This is a topic that really stirs me and one that has been on my mind constantly since my grandma was in her last week. It is for joy that I write this. O that everyone [of the 3 of you] that reads this would stop and evaluate the affection of his heart! Try to be honest with yourself to see if you really have affection and a desire for God. He is so Good, how awful it would be to be doing the appropriate things in life but miss out on the deepest, truest joy!
Like I said, affection can’t be conjured or mustered up. It has to be a change in your heart. I beg God every day for this affection, for more desire, for the distractions of the world to be turned down. I search, soak in, and memorize scripture to get more of Him while I wait. Beg God and wait. It may not be cool and it’s certainly super humbling, but it’s the path to eternal satisfaction.
Nice.
Caleb said this on January 12, 2012 at 10:43 am
Here is an actual comment I left.
cboller1 said this on January 12, 2012 at 11:40 am
Good word. I’ve not read “The Great Divorce,” but I am interested in Lewis’ description of material things apart from God–that things are far less substantial in hell–which seems to imply the goodness and Godliness of the physical. What are your thoughts on the importance of the new creation and of resurrection in discussing death/afterlife?
Ben L said this on January 15, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Great point. I definitely need to study up on how everything fits together in regards to Heaven, new creation, resurrection, etc. But I would say that the idea of the new creation is along the lines of what I’m saying here. I would say my working definition of heaven is oneness and increasing knowledge and experience of God. So the new creation is sort of the fulfillment of that when everything is made new and restored back to it’s perfect, God glorifying state – or oneness with God. So I guess the importance of the physical is the fact that everything is waiting to be made new in the new creation. This is where the idea of creation groaning in Romans 8 comes from. Or this idea comes from Romans 8
Does that make sense?
jfoor said this on January 17, 2012 at 8:54 am
Yeah, I really think that focusing on the new creation and on the hope of resurrection is key to reading Paul’s writings. I remember a while back we were talking about the difference we felt between reading the gospels and in reading Paul, i.e. that it was so much more challenging to accept the strange physicality of Jesus’ teachings as opposed to the the more propositional truths of Paul. If you are interested in doing some research on the tension between the two, NT Wright wrote a book a few years ago on the subject. It’s called “Surprised by Hope,” the blurb on the jacket is quite provocative, but I found the book to be very helpful and challenging. It’s also less scholarly in tone so it is far less intimidating than some of his other work. I would be interested to hear your take on his arguments.
Ben L said this on January 25, 2012 at 12:06 am