Yesterday we learned that heaven is a real place prepared for followers of Christ.  Today, we will discuss what to expect when we are there.  First, let's set aside a popular misconception: in heaven, people are not angels.  God created angels before he created us, and we are completely different.  When Jesus said that people in heaven are "like the angels" (Luke 20:36), he meant that we never die, as they do not.  Not that we have "wings and a halo" (they don't, either, by the way).  We are not angels.  But we do receive heavenly bodies: "The perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality" (1 Corinthians 15:53).

Will we recognize each other?  I think so, for these reasons.  Jesus said that in heaven we will take our places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Matthew 8:11), so clearly we will recognize them.  On the Mount of Transfiguration the disciples easily recognized Moses and Elijah (Matthew 17:3-4).  Paul promised that in heaven we will "know as we are known" (1 Corinthians 13:12).  I like what one preacher said: "We won't really know each other until we get to heaven!"

I would imagine that the biblical truths we've rehearsed so far are good news.  But let me ask: how often did you think about heaven this week?  Did its existence change anything you did?  Why should it?  For this simple reason: when we lose heaven we lose the transcendent.  We lose our sense that there is something more than this world, and we who live in it.  And that is always a bad decision.

If we don't live for heaven we will live for this world, for it is all there is.  And that the Bible says we must not do: "Do not love the world or anything in the world" (1 John 2:15; cf. 2 Corinthians 5:18; Colossians 3:1-3; Philippians 3:20).  Why are we not to love this world?  Because it is not enough.  The more we have, the more we want.  It is not our home.

We live for heaven when we care more for people's eternal souls than for their temporal approval; when we use our money to build God's kingdom more than our own; when we ask God to use our suffering more than to solve it; when we remember that this life is the car and not the house, the road and not the destination; when we make sure every day that we're ready to die.  So, are you living for heaven?

Tomorrow: Is hell real?

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