Heaven is Seeing God
In the heart of every believer there should be a desire to meet and see God. King David said; “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” Ps 27:4 (see also Ps 73:25)
In Exodus 33:18-23, we read how Moses was unable to look upon the face of God.
Paul made the following statement; “God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honour and might forever. Amen.” (1Tim 6:15-16 see also Heb 12:14)
Does this mean that when we meet God we will need to cower before him unable to look Him in the face?
Revelation 22:4 tells us we will enter Heaven and we shall see God. (see also Matt 5:8) Seeing God in the flesh is possible because of our resurrected bodies, that will be free from the Curse and Consequences of Sin.
But God is Spirit so how can we see his face? Jesus is the same “yesterday, today and forever” (Heb 13:8) Jesus never stopped being God when on earth, Jesus and the Father remained one and Jesus is seen standing at the right hand of God by Stephen (see Matt 1:23, John 1:14, 14:9) When we see Jesus we will see him in all his glory.
Job sums up so well the desire and longing of a believers heart
I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! Job 19:25-27 (see also 2Cor 3:18)
This has to be the main joy of Heaven, seeing God, and because of Jesus’ work of salvation there will be no barriers to us seeing God. Every time we see God will be like the first time all over again, we will never become weary of seeing God, experiencing and learning something new about God every time.
“We will constantly be more amazed with God, more in love with God and thus even more relishing his presence and our relationship with Him. Our experience of God will never reach its consummation. We will never finally arrive, as if reaching a peck and discovering there is nothing beyond. Our experience of God will never become stale. It will deepen and develop, intensify and amplify, unfold and increase, broaden and balloon.” Sam Storms
Heaven is God With Us
God’s original intention was to be with us, sin separated us from God and Heaven from earth. However, God is not going to abandon his Good creation and his Good plan into the hands of Satan. God has made several Promises that he will dwell with us; “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” 2Cor 6:16 (see also Lev. 26:12; Jer. 32:38; Ezek. 37:27)
God is not going to send a representative or delegate in His place, He himself will be the one who dwells with us his people. (see Rev 21:3)
Heaven is all about God and to talk about Heaven without God is Hell. Often spiritualist mediums claim that dead people from Heaven come and talk to them, the dead they claim that talk to them from Heaven never seem to talk about Jesus. Of course mediums are all deceived liars. John went to Heaven and could not stop talking about Jesus in Revelation because Heaven is all about God. (see John 14:3, 2Cor 5:8, Phil 1:23) Martin Luther said “ he would rather be in hell with Christ than in Heaven without Him”
A question that may arise in your mind could be “how can Jesus be with everyone at the same time?” Jesus is seen in his resurrected body and that is a single body which could not be with everyone at the same time and it would take forever for the billions for saints in Heaven to have their turn of personal time with Jesus. (see Acts 7:55, Heb 12:2, Matt 28:20, Eph 3:17, Gal 2:20)
The important thing to remember is we are talking about God for whom nothing is impossible, a God who is now omnipresent and with us. It may be because prayer in Heaven (which is communication with God) will no longer be hindered by sin our lines of communication with Jesus will constantly be open.
I often hear people talk about who they would choose to spend time with in Heaven, I am looking forward to talking with the chap Jesus raised from the dead during his funeral procession! After we imagine what it will be like to see departed loved ones and meet the famous never forget God has chosen you to spend eternity with Him.
Heaven Being with God
For a moment in worship or in prayer you can feel the presence of God, it is amazing wonderful exciting fantastic, then the distractions of life take us away from that moment, when we are in Heaven with God nothing can distract or take us away from the eternal joy of being with God.
Many people think that Heaven will be boring if all we do is worship. To be honest some worship on earth is boring. This creates the question, what style of worship will we have in Heaven? Anglican? Pentecostal? or Quaker? (see Rev 5:13-14, 7:9-12 nothing boring here) Worship will be loud at times, in different languages, there will be no order of service but spontaneous praise. Worship will be continuous but we will not be bowed down and singing all the time, because we will worship God in every thing we do.
We of course cannot answer every question about Heaven; one thing we can say is Heaven will never be boring because God is there. Will you be there?
You Can listen to this message at www.preaching.co.nr
Thanks to Rany Alcorn for his book on Heaven
