“Heaven. Is. A Wonderful Place”

Psalm 16 (NIV)

¹ Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge.

² I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.”  ³ As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight.  ⁴ The sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods.  I will not pour out their libations of blood or take up their names on my lips.

⁵ Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure.  ⁶ The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.

⁷ I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.  ⁸ I have set the Lord always before me.  Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

⁹ Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, ¹⁰ because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.  ¹¹ You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

 

Theme today: Paul gives us insight and the taste of eternity, a hint at what is coming for those who are in Christ.

 

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (NIV)

¹ If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  ² If I have the gift of prophesy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  ⁵ It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails.  But where there are prophesies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.  ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.  ¹² Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.

 

I know heaven isn’t in the text today, but it is hinted at, talked around.

 

Paul gives us a couple thoughts about heaven.  He uses metaphors.  The first is perfect or perfection.  Verse 9 “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part,” Paul is using the word telos, which means design or aim of something.  Paul is saying a place where we really belong because we created to be in that space.  We become all we were created to be, the place we should be headed toward, a place we’ve yearned for because we are loved.

 

We want to live forever, but that’s not going to happen, we have these desires which don’t appear to correspond with reality.

 

C. S. Lewis says we have desires which cannot be met in this world, it must be then that we were made for a different world.

 

Paul says there is such a place, a condition where we become all we are supposed to be, where our desires are met, where our detrimental aspects, like hope for justice, are not larger detriments or imperfections to life.  But rather these desires become strengths, they become who we are.

 

Paul talks about a face, seeing a face.  Now we see but a poor reflection or in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  I shall know fully, (future) even as I am (present) fully known.

 

There is only one person who knows us fully, Paul is talking about the face of God, we want to see God’s face but we are afraid at the same time.

 

We need and want to see God’s face, but our sins have blocked that relationship, we understand they (we) need God’s face, but cannot tolerate it.

 

From Scripture we understand our lives belong to God: we are to live and move at His pleasure, not our own.

 

Jesus has stepped in and has canceled our sin, and Jesus tells God this one is with us.

 

It is odd that we tend to want things that will kill us.  We want sins that destroy our lives.  This is why Jesus paid the price for us.  Which enabled us to receive God’s love that Jesus deserved.  This is why we love Jesus.

 

The last word in 1 Corinthians 13 is love.  Agape love is the love that is given to us by God.

 

When we see the face of God, we shall know that we have always known it.  He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love. 
~C. S. Lewis

 

(We long) to become acknowledge to meet with some response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things.  The door we have known only all our lives will open, we will be called in, we will be received.  Heaven is a place where we find ourselves, we will have a face in we will see face to face, we will understand the puzzle of our lives.

 

The greatest love we experience in this life is a shadow of the real love we will experience in Heaven with God.  We will be loved beyond what we could ever have imagined in this life.

 

Paul is painting a picture, giving us hints of what eternity with God will be like.

 

Everything will come to an end, but love.

 

A being by itself cannot define itself and be love.  There needs to be an object of that love.  We feel loved when we’re delighted in who we are, not what we bring.

 

Jonathan Edwards wrote, “In the middle of the universe, the infinite essential love of God is, as it were, an infinite and eternal, mutual, holy energy between the Father and the Son.  The Father and the Son delight in each other, and they are from all eternity pouring in the each other themselves…their love, that joy and that delight.”

 

The ultimate glory of God is this incredible love between the Father and the Son, and Jesus wants us to have that as well.  C. S. Lewis says that means into the heart of things.

 

Every time you see a view that fills you with awe and wonder, it is an echo, a hint of the love between the Father and the Son.  This is the song of songs, it is the love of the universe, it is the family, the relationship.

 

Paul says, “I shall know fully even as I am fully known.”  This is from the prospective of an infinite God: to be known, to be fully loved, totally accepted, because we are in a relationship with God.”

 

We forget that we are loved by God and have everything we need from Him.  You will be my people, and I will be your God.

 

God has made us all different, as we fellowship with each other we draw different things from our relationships with God and are able to understand God more fully as we are around our fellow Christians.

 

This week, dwell on God’s love and the many aspects of that love in our lives and the universe we love.  God bless; may God’s love overflow your heart.