A man said to a few of us at a gathering, “I find myself longing for Heaven.” After he left, someone said to me, “Shouldn’t he be longing for God, not Heaven?” This may sound spiritual, but is it? Scripture speaks positively of “longing for a better country—a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16). Indeed, the next verse tells us of those people who long for Heaven, “therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God because he has prepared a city for them.”
I don’t know the man’s heart, but his statement was biblically warranted and commendable. The right kind of longing for Heaven is a longing for God, and longing for God is longing for Heaven. If we understand what Heaven is (God’s dwelling place) and who God is, we will see no conflict between the two. A woman who longs to be reunited with her husband could well say, “I just want to go home.”
I’m often asked the following question in various ways: “Why talk about Heaven when we can just talk about Jesus?” The answer is that the two go together. We were made for a person (Christ) and a place (Heaven). There is no rivalry between Christ and Heaven.
Any bride in love with her husband wants to be with him more than anything. But if he goes away to build a beautiful place for her, won’t she get excited about it? Won’t she think and talk about that place? Of course. Moreover, he wants her to! If he tells her, “I’m going to prepare a place for you,” he’s implying, “I want you to look forward to it.” Her love and longing for the place he’s preparing—where she will live with him—is inseparable from her love and longing for her husband.
Some erroneously assume that the wonders, beauties, adventures, and marvelous relationships of Heaven must somehow be in competition with the one who has created them. God has no fear that we’ll get too excited about Heaven. After all, the wonders of Heaven aren’t our idea, they’re his. There’s no dichotomy between anticipating the joys of Heaven and finding our joy in Christ. It’s all part of the same package. The wonders of the new heavens and New Earth will be a primary means by which God reveals himself and his love to us.
Picture Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Eve says to Adam, “Isn’t this place magnificent? The sun feels wonderful on my face, the blue sky’s gorgeous. These animals are a delight. Try the mango—it’s delicious!”
Can you imagine Adam responding, “Your focus is all wrong, Eve. You shouldn’t think about beauty, refreshment, and mouthwatering fruit. All you should think about is God.”
Adam would never say that, because in thinking about these things, Eve would be thinking about God. Likewise, our enjoyment of what God has provided us should be inseparable from worshiping, glorifying, and appreciating him. God is honored by our thankfulness, gratitude, and enjoyment of him.
I’ve heard it said that “God, not Heaven, is our inheritance.” Well, God is our inheritance (Psalm 16:6), but so is Heaven (1 Peter 1:3-4). God and Heaven—the person and the place—are so closely connected that they’re sometimes referred to interchangeably. The Prodigal Son confessed, “I have sinned against heaven” (Luke 15:18, 21). John the Baptist said, “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven” (John 3:27). Why didn’t he say God instead of Heaven? Because God has made himself that closely identified with Heaven. It’s his place. And that’s his idea, not ours. He could have offered us his person without his place. But he didn’t.
God Wants you to Want Heaven
So, thinking about Heaven shouldn’t be viewed as an obstacle to knowing God but as a means of knowing Him. The infinite God reveals himself to us in tangible, finite expressions. Next to the incarnate Christ, Heaven will tell us more about God than anything else. Some people have told me, “I just want to be with Jesus—I don’t care if Heaven’s a shack.” Well, Jesus cares. He wants us to anticipate Heaven and enjoy the magnificence of it, not to say, “I don’t care about it” or “I’d be just as happy in a shack.” When you go to visit your parents in the house you grew up in, it’s no insult to tell them “I love this place.” It’s a compliment. They’ll delight in it, not resent it.
-Randy Alcorn, from Heaven