Joyously anticipating heaven
Revelation 19:7 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.”
It has been said that their wedding is one of the happiest days of a person’s life, so it is no surprise that in the Bible God uses a wedding as one of the earthly pictures of heaven. There are several places in the Bible where God pictures Jesus as a bride beautifully dressed, waiting and ready for her groom – the Church (all Christians).
Notice the words which are used in the first sentence of our Bible verse for this week – rejoice, glad & give him glory. Those are words of joy and delight – because that is exactly how God wants us to think of heaven – with joy and expectation.
At this time of the year the Christian Church focuses on the end of the world, being prepared for Judgment Day and looking forward to heaven. So, how expectantly are you looking forward to heaven? Perhaps that question takes you a little by surprise. It is far too easy for us to get so wrapped up in the activities and things of this life that we quickly lose sight of the fact that we are only visitors here on earth and our home is in heaven.
When a person who has lived a long time or someone has struggled with a terminal disease, you often hear them talking with joy and expectation about heaven where they know their troubles will be over. But when a younger person dies suddenly or tragically the most common reaction is that “they were taken too soon”.
Many Christians will tell you that on days when things get difficult they have thoughts or perhaps even prayers of how wonderful it would be to be in heaven and free of the troubles of this life. The lyrics of a favorite Christian hymn capture that thought well:
And when the fight is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
In the midst of all the joy and excitement of talking about the perfect relief of heaven, there is one thought in our verse for this week that we dare not lose sight of – “give him glory”. Yes, our gracious God wants us to expectantly look forward to the perfect joys of heaven. Yes, our loving God desires that we get to heaven and enjoy being in his presence in perfect glory forever. But with all of that we need to make sure that we join the choirs of angels and sing and praise and give God the glory. After all, he is the one who secured heaven for us through Jesus our Savior. He is the one who prepared heaven for us and constantly holds it out before us to remind us of what lies before us.
Joy and happiness. Those are feelings which our God designed us for and wants us to have in this life as well as forever in heaven. Let’s not get so caught up in the joys of this life that we fail to make sure we are ready for the perfect, eternal joys of heaven!