The Hope of Heaven

We have probably heard the expression, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but no one seems anxious to go today.” Have you ever wondered why that is? In Matthew 6, Jesus said, “‘Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust destroys, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal,’” (Matthew 6:19-20, NASB). The reason some of us are less than anxious to check in to heaven today could be because we’ve stored up our treasures here. Our focus is on what happens here on this earth, and we fail to realize that our earthly existence is only a blip on the radar of our eternal existence. This is why we worry, stress out, and have anxiety attacks about temporal things. If our focus shifted from the temporal to the eternal, our worry, stress, and anxiety would decrease.

Are there times God may need to say to us, “You are only staying here a week! Why are you buying all of this stuff you are going to have to leave behind?” Compared to life with Him eternally, our stay here is like a week in a motel room. And God sees how much time, effort, and money we put into making our brief stay here as comfortable as possible. What if we took all the energy focused on our earthly existence (which is perishable, defiled, and dying) and focused it on our eternal existence “…which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,” (1 Peter 1:4, NASB)? We would sing with joy: “I can’t feel at home in this world anymore!”