A Matter of Fact

“But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13, NIV 2011).

I made a house call today and talked of heaven. I visited the home of a wonderful woman whom, earlier this week, I had told we could no longer treat her cancer. We sat in her den, her swollen feet propped up by the reclining chair, dealing with her symptoms and ways to improve them. Then she said, “I’m a Christian; I know where I’m going. It’s okay.” After a pause, she added, “And the best thing is, I will get to see my dad.” We then talked together of heaven as it should be discussed: a matter of fact, not a matter of conjecture.

Heaven is a fact, not a conjecture. Our eternal hope is a journey toward the truth of life, not a passive wish imagined from defeated life.
Heaven means: whatever the struggle in our lives, it will all be okay, someday.
But most of us are not where my patient is, one foot in heaven, where God makes His glory clear. For most of us, heaven is Christmas morning and this is June.
With such a distance between us and our future home, we address the truth of heaven with passivity, and even doubt, and rarely let it change our lives. We claim heaven as home, but live and think like we are citizens of this world. We grasp and control the things that matter to us now, not realizing that the purpose and value of everything now is totally transformed by the truth of heaven.
It was good today to sit with one so close to glory and talk the truth of life.

Dear Father,
Thank you for the certainty of life forever. Let me take this truth and transform my life today.
Amen