Heaven

Revelation 21:1 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. 2 Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”5 Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” 6 And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. 7 He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. 8 But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

We got a call this week. A good friend from the nursing home had passed away Tues. night. His name was Micheal Lee. I was never sure just exactly how old he was...I always refered to him as "kid". As some of you may know, I have been going to that nursing home for almost 5 yrs now, once a week. We don’t miss very many weeks.

I will never forget the first service I held there. I had been in contact with the staff and remembered that as a young boy our church had a nursing home ministry. I remembered it as being a lot of "older" folks just usually enjoying our company for a little while. I thought of the same thing about this nursing home. Boy, what a shock I got when I first walked into that place.

The patients were NOT like those I remembered. These patients were different.....some elderly, but by and large mostly people with physical and mental handicaps. I did the service, but was a little disturbed and wasn’t sure I wanted to go back. Sometimes it’s hard to see people in those positions....but I determined to go back and do the best I could. Most of the patients couldn’t talk, and the ones that could were usually unintelligible. One Wed as I was setting up, the only one that the staff had brought in yet was Micheal Lee. Let me tell you about him.

At one point in his life, he was a "normal" kid. Something happened and he ended up paralized in a wheelchair. His hands were of no use, his arms wouldn’t move.....but he could (and did) smile. He could light up a room! Anyway, I had my back to him when suddenly I heard someone say "Robert!" I looked around to see who it could be..there was no one there except him and I. From that point, he slowly advanced to where he would be coming down the hall saying "Robert! Gonna sing?" He even got to where he would "Amen" some of my sermonettes at times. He was a very special young man, and I took the news of his death particularly hard. He wasn’t the first we’d seen come and go....that is the hard part of that ministry...but it was harder for some reason.

My wife (God bless her) knew I was upset. She walked into the living room after a while and told me "you know what? This morning, Micheal Lee isn’t bound by a wheelchair. His hands aren’t stuck, and he is singing praises to Jesus and walking streets of gold". And I believe that! He is happy now with Jesus! The thing we’ll always remember is his smile. It lite up the whole room and inspired all of us that were there. He was always an inspiration for us....if he can smile thru his life, how can we NOT smile in ours? It made me think about heaven, and today we are going to see what the Bible says about heaven, our eternal reward!

Now while it’s true we don’t know the details about heaven, the Bible does give us a general idea. What we discover is absolutely mind-blowing!

WHAT WE WILL BE LIKE 1 John 3:2 "Dear friends, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him." When we enter heaven will be changed physically and spiritually. John tells us we will be like Jesus. What will that be like? Here are a few things the Bible tells us: