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Religious: Plan for eternity
Pastor Don Porter
for South Peace News
As this is the time of year when people are thinking of topping off their RRSP plans so they can have funds for the retirement they are planning, I often wonder if these same people also have a plan for their eternity?
We all want our future to be better than we are currently living so why do we often stop planning at our retirement years? Retirement years are often short for most people whereas eternity is forever, so shouldn’t we be planning and preparing for it?
The Bible tells us our eternity will either be spent in heaven or hell and that our location is up to us. It isn’t that we will get to pick it when we die but we do pick it by whether we accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour while we are alive. When we have accepted Jesus we are encouraged to live our lives in preparation for our life in eternity.
The Bible has much to say about what heaven is like. First, heaven is an actual place. Jesus told His disciples, “I go to prepare a place for you!” (John 14:2)
Heaven is a real place for real people, and when we get there, it will be amazing and fantastic.
The Bible uses a number of words to describe heaven, including ‘paradise’. Jesus said to the thief on the cross who came to his senses, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
The paradise Jesus was speaking of, literally translated, is a word that would have been used in the first century to describe the garden of a king. It is hard for us to imagine how luxurious and splendid this would appear to someone living in this time. If you were a relatively impoverished person and were given the privilege of going into the walled garden of a king, you would be overwhelmed by the fragrance and beauty of it all. So ‘paradise’ was a point of reference for people.
God has placed a homing instinct within you and me as well, and I believe it is homesickness for heaven. We long for a place we have never been before. We are prewired that way.
The Bible tells us God has put eternity in our hearts. Heaven is the real thing we long for. Heaven is not an imitation of Earth, but it is really the other way around. Earth is the copy, the temporary dwelling place. Heaven is the real deal, the eternal dwelling place of every follower of Jesus Christ. It is the place we long for, because it is our future home.
We long to be with God. We long to see God. But if God were to show Himself to us today, we couldn’t handle it, because God is perfect and flawless and holy, and we are imperfect and flawed and unholy. There is coming a day when you will see God.
Job said, “And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God.” (Job 19:26)
That will happen when you get to heaven. And seeing God will be like seeing everything else for the first time, because not only will you see Him, but He will be the lens through which you will see everything else: people, yourself, and the events of this life. We long for heaven, but this longing is really a longing for God Himself.
But the truth is that hell is also a real place. Most people believe in heaven, and most people believe they are going there. But Jesus said, “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.” (Matthew 7:13)
If we believe the Bible, then we have to accept this simple fact: Most people are actually headed to hell. We are very uncomfortable with that.
As a pastor, I am concerned for people’s eternity even if they aren’t. I want to teach the Word of God. I want to help people grow in their faith as followers of Jesus.
But when it is all said and done, the greatest thing I want to see happen is that people who were on their way to hell will be on their way to heaven instead. I want people to change their eternal address.
That is why I do what I do!
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