In the Los Angeles Times, Joel Stein wrote, “Heaven is totally overrated. It seems boring. Clouds, listening to people play the harp. It should be somewhere you can’t wait to go, like a luxury hotel. Maybe blue skies and soft music were enough to keep people in line in the 17th century, but Heaven has to step it up a bit. They’re basically getting by because they only have to be better than Hell.”
Heaven is not overrated. If anything, it is underrated, misunderstood, and unappreciated. The notion that the inhabitants of heaven will spend endless days floating on clouds and playing harps is not biblical – not in the slightest! And to prefer a stay at the Ritz to the majesty of heaven is woefully short-sighted and shows a complete ignorance of God’s revealed truth.
Take some time to read Revelation 21 and 22. You will find God pulling back the curtain to allow the Apostle John to get a glimpse of the glories that await all followers of Jesus Christ. It is a place that is beautiful beyond compare. A sea of crystal, streets of transparent gold, and a new Jerusalem that is half the size of the moon – that’s beyond our ability to fully integrate into our thinking!
There is no way that with finite minds we can grasp the fullness of what an eternity with God in heaven will be like. The greatest poet cannot capture its grandeur. The greatest artist cannot paint its beauty. Paul was right – “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Eternity is not clouds and harp music. It is not endless rounds of under-par golf or endless days of catching fish. As we open the pages of Scripture and allow God to show us what awaits His children, none of us will walk away thinking heaven is overrated; in fact, it may ignite within us a burning desire to want to spend our forever in that place!
Be Transformed 