Heaven and Gary Plueger - A Second Thought

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

In all honesty, we Christ followers think more about NOW than we do about THEN—more earthly than heavenly. Maybe it’s because we were raised believing the adage, “to be heavenly minded is of no earthly good.” There is some truth to that. But it is also true that you can be so earthly minded that you forget that heaven is being prepared for you, and you are being prepared for heaven. 

Concerning heaven, Randy Alcorn wrote, "We live between Eden and the new earth, pulled toward what we once were and what we yet will be."

Some people think that heaven is merely the product of man’s wishful thinking. Even if that were true [and I don’t for a nano-second believe it], some giants of mankind kept the hope of heaven alive. Take Abraham, for example, who lived about 4,000 years ago. The Bible declares that, even when he reached the land that God had promised him, he thought of himself as “tent-dweller” while he looked forward to a celestial place designed by God.

Why does man keep on believing in heaven? Why is heaven the ultimate hope of Christ followers? The wise Solomon said that “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end” [Ecclesiastes 3:11].

As I have pondered heaven these past couple of days because of the passing of a dear brother in the Lord, Gary Plueger, I’m reminded of an old-timey hymn which says, “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passin’ through.” Yes, I’m here, planted on planet earth momentarily, but there is a day when Christ followers will experience what is now only the “hope of glory.” Here’s how the Apostle Paul put it, “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 

I can hardly wait!

Abraham did this because he was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God. Hebrews 11:10 - New Living Translation