Thoughts of heaven

This morning I spent some time meditating upon heaven. It is such a vast subject that I found myself lost in the thoughts of it! The joys that await us cannot be less infinite than the God in whom we’ll find those joys and from whom we’ll receive them. And though our souls shall be perfect in comparison to what they are now, and delighted and ravished with the presence of God Most High, yet they shall ever be on the increase, growing wiser and wiser in God as the ages roll on eternally. Let me share some of my thoughts with you.

The longer we’re in God’s presence in heaven, the more glorious He’ll be to us because we’ll come to know Him more and more. He shall never be more than He is, because He is perfect; but we shall ever be learning more of who He is, because He is infinite and we will remain finite. And the more we know of Him, the more we’ll admire and love Him, because He is most glorious. And the more we admire and love Him, the more we’ll become like Him, because admiration and love beget assimilation. And the more we become like Him, the more “roomy” our souls will become. And the more roomy and extensive the faculties of our souls become (our knowledge, reason, affections, will, etc.), the more of God we’ll apprehend and “draw in.” And the more we apprehend of God, the more He is glorified–to all eternity.

There will therefore be an eternal progression of knowing, admiring, loving, and being assimilated to God (as children becoming more and more like their Father), and of the enlargement of our souls to love Him, admire Him, and commune with Him eternally. Indeed, after we’ve been an astonished, ravished, and ardent adorer of God for a thousand years, and for a million more, until numbers fail and computation is swallowed up in eternity, we’ll still but be at the ocean’s edge of the excellencies, beauties, and glories that are in our God for our eternal enjoyment and happiness.

If this heaven is the prospect of life after death, a heaven of enjoying God and growing in the knowledge and love of God forever, then is it not foolish for a man to long for heaven who finds no delight in God on earth? What does he think will happen in death? Does he imagine that his heart will suddenly be changed by death from caring nothing for God to be insatiably ravished by Him? What foolish thoughts these are! It’s a vain thing to think we can take any delight in being with Christ hereafter if we care not how little we are in His company here. If a man cannot serve God and the Saviour with delight on earth and make this earth “a heaven” of sorts, then there is no other heaven for him after he dies.  Instead, he’ll find, to his eternal regret and shame, that just as he didn’t welcome heaven while he lived, so heaven won’t welcome him after he dies. Let every man be sure of this: our future existence will be a continuation of the spiritual life and condition we had while on earth and in which we were when we died. Death makes no alteration in our spiritual condition, it only clears up our mistakes about it…

How welcome, then, will death be to those who truly mourn for sin, feel the burden of it, taste the bitterness of it, and long for complete deliverance from it! who long to be free of all that hinders communion with God the Father, fellowship with God the Son, and the fullness of God the Holy Spirit!

Is this the prospect set before you? Are you living for this heaven? Do you long to be there? Is the Lord and love of your soul there? Have you sent your heart to heaven ahead of your body?

Life is but a dressing room for eternity, a small space of time in which to ready the soul for its eternal abode. Unless you can see this heaven and its Lord beyond the grave as worth dying for, then I can’t imagine what you find this side of the grave worth living for…