"Would you be satisfied to go to heaven, have everybody in your family that you want there, have all the health and restoration of your prime, and everything you don't like about yourself fixed, have every recreation you have dreamed possible available to you, and have infinite resources of money to spend ... would you be satisfied ... if God weren't there?" (John Piper) What a pertinent question! It strikes at the heart of what we understand heaven to be. What is the reward for those who believe and trust in Jesus Christ anyway? Is it really what we often think of it to be; endless buffet's in which we never gain a pound, getting to spend infinite amounts of time in joy and bliss with other human beings whom we loved in this life? Gold and jewels that we can possess, achieving for us status and prominence among other humans? Endless leisure, entertainment, and pleasure where we never have another day of work, frustration or pain? An eternal vacation on white sand beaches? For many of us, our understanding of heaven is shallow and immature. Heaven is not a dwelling place for you to be entertained. It is the dwelling place of God, in which He would be so gracious as to share His goodness and love with you. Being in heaven, without truly and purely loving God for who He is, would end up being Hell. You would be miserable beyond imagination. God will not share His glory with anyone or anything (Isa 42:8, 48:11) that includes you, or anything that you think God would put in heaven for you above and beyond himself, which would of course just be idols, created things like yourself. The next time we think about the struggles that we are facing (1 Cor 10:13) and the difficulties of life, and our imagination drifts to the thoughts of leaving this world and the joy's of heaven, let us be sure that we are imagining accurately (at least as accurately as we can: 1 Cor 2:9) and the eternal glories that we are excited about (2 Cor 4:17) are of God himself, and not just the vacation we hope to have this holiday season. If God is not beautiful to you, in and of himself, heaven will not be a place you wish to be. "Heaven will be inhabited by people who love God! God is our treasure (Psalm 73:25) ... behold the beauty, the glory, goodness, justice, wisdom, truth, grace, mercy, patience ... the whole panorama of the perfections of Almighty of God and let yourself fall in love with Him as the satisfaction of your soul, and that will be the pathway that leads to glory." (John Piper)
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