[Written by Dr. Chris Peters]
In his excellent book Heaven, Randy Alcorn comments on how strange it would be for a group of astronauts to be finally getting the chance to launch into space to reach Mars, and moments after lift-off, turning to each other to ask, “So, does anyone know anything about Mars?” Or maybe closer to home, most of us have probably read and meditated more about our next desired vacation destination, than we have about our eternal home in the New Heaven and New Earth. In our upcoming 6-week sermon series I hope to help us become more heavenly-minded, which, contrary to the old saying, will actually make us “more earthly good.”
One of the reasons we struggle to value heaven is that we live in a particular part of history and a particular society where earthly life can be amazingly good. By just about any statistical quantification, life today for the average American is remarkably better than 100 years ago, and the same can be said for most societies around the world – lower infant mortality, longer life span, antibiotics and other remarkable medicines that address ailments and sustain our lives, economic provision, leisure time, quality and quantity of food and housing, just for starters. I know that these things make it challenging for me to long for heaven, and I’m confident I’m not alone.
Yet 2 Corinthians 5:6;8-9, written by the apostle Paul over 2000 years ago, when day-to-day life, and even the process of death, were so much more difficult, says “We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord… we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.”
Hope you will pray for yourself, your household and our church family, as well as for me, as we begin on August 1. For more details, visit the sermon series schedule here.
