YOUR HEAVENLY HOME

YOUR HEAVENLY HOME
FRIENDS, our heavenly Father is always thinking of His children. In fact, we are never out of His thoughts. In the Scriptures we read: “He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep,” and He is constantly working things out for the best good of those that love and serve Him. God not only thinks of us and our needs during this life’s experience, but He earnestly desires that we should have a part in the world to come.
Oh, that men might lift their heads away from the soil from which they are endeavouring to extract a living, and look up and see the angel of God waiting to place a crown of eternal life upon their brows! this present life is only a fleeting shadow, but the life to come will be an eternal reality, and, too, all that God offers to us associated with the future life will be real and tangible.
We wish to tell you about the home that God has prepared for you in heaven. When Jesus left the earth, He said He was going to prepare mansions for His followers in His Father’s house. In John 14:1-3 we read: “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
Our heavenly home will surely be something worthwhile. Think who is designing it — none else but the Lord Jesus Himself. We read in the Bible that what the ear has not heard, nor eye seen, and what has never entered into the mind of men, God has prepared for those who love Him. I wish we could forget the old idea of heaven’s being a spirit-world where people are immaterial spirits, for, according to the Scriptures, heaven will be quite different from that. And here’s the proof. I am reading Philippians 3:20, 21: “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.” Good speed translates this passage as follows: “He will make over our poor bodies to resemble His glorious body.” Do you get the significance of that? Our bodies will be changed to resemble the glorious resurrected body of our Lord, and this change will take place at the appearing of our Lord. (1 John 3:2).
Let us now notice the significance of the fact that we are going to be just like Jesus was in bodily form right after the resurrection. When He met with His disciples He made it very clear to them that He was a real, material being. He stated this fact positively in Luke 24:39, where we read: “A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have.” And to doubting Thomas He said: “Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side; and be not faithless, but believing.” John 20:27.
When Thomas reached out his hand and found that the Master was really there in person, and that He was a real, tangible being, he exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” We bring this proof of the tangible, material body of our Lord to you because the Scripture says we shall be like Him. Thus, when we come forth from the grave, or if we live to see Him come, we shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump, and these vile, mortal bodies of ours will be changed and we shall become immortal, tangible beings.
Next we answer the question, “Shall we partake of food in the kingdom to come?” It is interesting to note that Christ could and did partake of food after the resurrection. We read in Luke 24:41-43: “And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, He said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And He took it, and did eat before them.
That we shall eat and drink in the life to come is clear from the statement of our Lord Himself, who said, as recorded in Matthew 26:29: “ I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.” So you see, God’s heaven will be a very real place with real people in it.
It is spoken of as a place where houses will be built and crops harvested. The Lord says, through the prophet Isaiah, “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. . . .And they [the inhabitants of the new earth and the New Jerusalem] shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.” Isaiah 65:17-23. I hope, when that day dawns, that I’ll be living in the midst of all my friends, so that I can have the joy of handing them some grapes from my vineyard in that glad day.
One thing that is uppermost in many people’s minds when they think about heaven, is whether they will know their friends and loved ones there. There is a statement made by the Apostle Paul which indicates that we shall know one another in heaven. In 1 Corinthians 13:12 we are told, “Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” I would gather from this that we shall know others, and they will know us in heaven.
And then I think of that question that mothers especially are so fond of asking: “Will our children grow up in heaven, or will those that die as infants always remain babies?” We are assured that the babies will grow up in heaven, for Isaiah 65:20 declares: “There shall be no more thence an infant of days.”
But does that mean that babies and little children will not go to heaven? Never forget that it was the great Life-giver who said: “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.” And we can be sure that He will see them saved in the kingdom. Isaiah 11 depicts babes and sucklings in the new earth living in the midst of one-time ravenous beasts. In Malachi 4:2, we are told that, in that day we shall grow up as calves of the stall. And what a lovely picture there is in Zechariah 8:5, of boys and girls playing in the streets of the New Jerusalem! The streets are full of them, we are told.
One of the great pleasures that awaits fathers and mothers in heaven is to see the children grow up whom, with broken hearts and many tears, they had laid in the grave during their sojourn on earth. In that glad day the angels will place them in the arms of their parents, and they will have the joy of seeing them grow up in the atmosphere of the gloryland. Why, that thought in itself should spur us on to win the prize of immortal life, and join the loved ones beside the river of life.
We shall never grow weary in the life to come. The Bible says: “They shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” Heaven, on the other hand, will not be a lazy man’s country. Having perfect minds and perfect bodies we shall constantly be so full of energy that we shall always be eager to do something.
At the end of 6,000 years the men of this world have just begun to discover some of the secrets of God’s great universe. Every day new discoveries are being made in every field of science. What a wonderful thing it will be in the life to come, to study with our perfect minds every branch of science, and understand for ourselves the wonders of God’s creation! Here we just begin to appreciate some of the wonders that God has prepared for man’s enjoyment when we come to the end of life; but in that day life will never end.
Just think of it! Heaven will be a place where death will never enter. In that land there will be no funeral trains, no farewell partings with swollen eyes and tear-stained cheeks. The aches that rack our bodies, and the fears that perplex and distress our minds in this life, will have no place there.
Perhaps you are saying just now, But what is required to get one’s name in the Lamb’s Book of Life that we may find admittance into the heavenly home? In Revelation 22:14 we read: “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” Friend, if you feel the Spirit tugging at your heart, urging you to make sure of entering through the gates into the city of God, do not delay. Your passport into the heavenly country can be obtained right now, at this very moment. Your name can be registered upon the book of life just where you are. If you ask the Lord Jesus to inscribe your name there He will do it. If you are willing to surrender your all to Him and follow in His footsteps, your name will be immediately written in letters of gold upon the white pages of the book of life.
It is not enough to be anxious about getting to heaven, we must make a definite decision to take out our citizenship papers for heaven. We must determine to do what we know to be right in the sight of God. We must walk in the light as He has been pleased to reveal it to us, and we must place our hands unreservedly in the hand that was nailed to the cross for us, and ask God to lead us through all the future of our lives until it is our privilege to be led through the pearly gates into the city of God. Think of that beautiful home that Jesus is preparing for you right now. Are you preparing to occupy it some day? Jesus said to the people of His day, “Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life.” John 5:40. May that not be said of one who reads these lines. Eternal life in God’s new world is yours if you can but say, “I will,” today. “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Revelation 22:17.
PRAYER: Dear heavenly Father, we tank Thee for the provision that Thou hast made for our eternal welfare. We are glad to learn, dear Lord, that heaven is a real place, and that we shall know our loved ones and friends in the glory land. We are happy that Thou hast revealed to us “the way, the truth and the life.” We respond to Thy invitation to come and drink of the water of life freely. Continue to “shew me Thy ways, O Lord; teach me Thy paths . . .for Thou art the God of my salvation; on Thee do I wait all the day.” In Jesus Name, Amen.