Set Your Mind on Things to Come
I want you to close your eyes for a moment and imagine heaven. Really try and put yourself there… And then look around. Let yourself explore for a minute. What do you see? Is it bright? Is it clear or a little hazy? Are there trees or hills or rivers or animals? Are there buildings and streets and cars? Are there people there? If so, what are they doing? Are they working or talking or playing or eating? Are they serious or laughing? Does it feel a lot like earth or like another planet — does it feel like a place at all, or just a group of friendly clouds with a few angels flying around? …One more question as you look around: Is the place in your imagination a place you’d want to be — like right now? Is it a place you’d want to live — forever?
You can open your eyes. If the heaven we imagine is not a place we really want to go (or at least not for long), then we haven’t understood heaven at all. Randy Alcorn writes in his book called Heaven, “Satan need not convince us that Heaven doesn’t exist. He need only convince us that Heaven is a place of boring, unearthly existence. . . . Because Satan hates us, he’s determined to rob us of the joy we’d have if we believed what God tells us about the magnificent world to come.”
And it will be magnificent. It’s not just going to be a throne room with rows of pews all around. There will be a throne, and it will be magnificent. He will be magnificent. But God’s not just making a throne; he’s making a new heavens and a new earth (Revelation 21:1) — all of it freed from sin and charged with glory and wonder. We will live on a new earth filled with life, and adventure, and discovery, and God. “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). If you can imagine it, it’s not good enough yet.
Many of us can’t even begin to imagine a world better than this one, because we assume the good things we’ve enjoyed here won’t be there. But the truly good things we have here were given to us by God, to lead us to God — and if they lead us to God now, why wouldn’t they be in the world to come? If music helps you love God now, then why not instruments and bands and concerts? If nature helps you love God now, why not mountains and oceans and bike trails? If reading helps you love God now, why not books and libraries and book clubs? And if friendships help you love God now, why wouldn’t we do all this — explore and read and sing and play and eat and worship together?
The world we’re waiting for will be a world filled with love for God — and with ten thousand reasons to love him more. Alcorn once more: “We may imagine we want a thousand different things, but God is the one we really long for. His presence brings satisfaction; his absence brings thirst and longing. Our longing for Heaven is a longing for God.”
My exhortation for us, Cities Church, is that we let the paradise God has promised us capture more of our attention and imagination — that we set our minds on things above and things to come.