Resources by Topic: Heaven

We tend to think of everlasting life as something that begins after the Resurrection or after we die when in reality it starts the day our lives are returned to us through Christ’s work of salvation. Likewise, we think of the bride of Christ in individual terms instead of as the Church.

I have often wished I could call up recordings of conversing with people I’ve met at churches, conventions, airports, and many more places. I suspect we will be able to recall conversations and “chance” meetings when we see those people again in Heaven.

For many of us, the list of people we’re longing for reunion with in Heaven is lengthy. But those who have lost children, like Marshall Shelley and his wife Susan, have even more compelling reasons to long for Heaven. His writing beautifully demonstrates an eternal perspective on every human life. Whether or not you’ve lost a child in a miscarriage or after birth, I think you’ll be moved by what he shares. 

A reader asked me if it’s possible he’ll visit his childhood hometown one day on the New Earth. Might this earth’s places that we loved and enjoyed be resurrected to the New Earth? In becoming new, will the old Earth retain much of what it once was?

What will it be like on our resurrection day, when we return with Christ to this old Earth, when we are given new bodies in the knowledge that we will together colonize a New Earth? At the end of my novel Safely Home, I tried to catch a flavor of what it may be like.

We can think of our lives in terms of a dot and a line, signifying two phases. Our present life on Earth is the dot. It begins. It ends. It’s brief. However, from the dot, a line extends that goes on forever.

It helps to remember the genre of Ecclesiastes (wisdom literature) and the author’s purpose in writing (to show the futility of seeking happiness in worldly things; of living with a perspective limited to only this present life). 

Randy speaks about Heaven, which will one day be forever located on the New Earth. God’s Word promises us what we can look forward to for eternity: a permanent renewal of the original good creation, and liberation from all of the dysfunctions of the fall. “For behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress” (Isaiah 65:17-19). 

In this clip from a message on Heaven, Randy asks, “What isn't included in God's promise in Matthew 19:28 to renew all things?”

Randy uses the term universe to mean what we extrapolate from astronomical observation to be the place in space where we exist and that there could be other realms with their own space and time which may be separate or may intersect.

In this audio clip, Randy Alcorn shares that those who have died aren’t missing out on the best of life; instead, they have joined the real party in Heaven. One day, we all will truly experience the best life possible on the New Earth, where adventures and joy will be unlimited.

God has made us to be physical beings living in a physical world—eating, drinking, playing, working, loving, worshiping, and laughing to God’s glory. That’s the promise of the Resurrection—eternal delight and joy in the presence of the God who redeemed us.

Grief is an expected part of life on this broken earth. In this video clip from his interview with Costi Hinn on For the Gospel podcast, Randy Alcorn shares the importance of grieving with hope as believers in Jesus Christ.  

It’s not that often I read a book that deals with Heaven, the New Earth, or Eternal Reward when I feel like the author really “gets it.” Jordan Raynor has done his homework and really gets it. Hope you enjoy this excerpt from The Sacredness of Secular Work.