But, why? Who wants to sit around in white robes playing harps and "eternally resting"? Well, I've never been to Heaven -- obviously -- and the Bible doesn't give a lot of specifics about the things I will encounter there, but I know God never does anything halfway. The season of Easter does not end with Jesus hanging on a cross, sins atoned, and death in all its finality. Easter ends with a tremendous celebration of L-I-F-E!! Eternal life! Earth quaking, stone rolling eternal life that begins the moment we choose to make Jesus the King of our lives. It is a life of victory and blessing. It is a life of unexpectedness and challenges, a life of excitement and mystery. Somehow, I cannot imagine Heaven being less than the life we have come to know here on earth.
What makes me so sure I am going? Well, I am not a good person. My behavior in my twenties and thirties probably warranted psychiatric help. I can revert to some of my old habits so quickly even I am surprised. I am not in church every Sunday. I do not make three or four Bible studies or services every week. I do not give tons of money to churches, overseas ministries, animal shelters or homeless shelters. If this life, with the God of the universe always watching, always seeing what lies in my heart, was an attempt to earn my way to Heaven, I'd be lucky to make it to the first rest stop. I am simply a person whom God loves. I acknowledge what He did for me in sending Jesus to pay for my sin, and I know how greatly I need that forgiveness each and every day. Because of His tremendous love for me and the Gift of Jesus that makes relationship possible, I desire that relationship. I want to speak to Him, to listen to His direction, to serve Him and demonstrate my love for Him, and tell others of His love for them as well; I want to do all I can to bring Him the glory to which He is entitled. But I know none of this would be possible without the presence of His Holy Spirit in me. The selfless, loving, patient, gentle, kind, faithful things I long to do are simply the overflow, the evidence of His work in me. The certainty of my eternal destiny rests entirely in my life becoming Christ's, my will becoming His, and His grace empowering and sustaining all of it. I am no good without Him and only capable of good because of Him. The more work He does in me on earth, the more eager I become to meet Him face to face. My eternal life of seeking God and serving Him doesn't end with a dirt nap. In fact, it doesn't end at all! I will simply relocate to Heaven when this aging, aching body wears out. And while we may not have all the details we'd like, Scripture tells us Heaven is a place for surrendered, faithful people saved by God's grace alone.
If you are trying to be a good person, if you love someone who is a good person, if you are inspired by someone who is a good person, please, please, please, read the Bible. Find out what God says about Heaven and how to get there. Put your worldly ideas about becoming an angel, or keeping an eye on your grandchildren from above, or messaging your husband from the afterlife that he can marry your replacement, or being "selfless" in your own strength, or taking in more cats than the law should allow, or being charitable because you should, and know that God is far more than we can imagine and so is His Heaven. You do not have to be good to get there.
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