A Travel Guide To Heaven
Excerpts
Your Ticket To Heaven
When you ask people what they think heaven will be like, most struggle to find a clear answer. Instead of giving you a definite response, they usually grope for various adjectives. These almost always include words like, "cloudy," "hazy," "white," and "dream-like."…
When we do allow ourselves to describe heaven in a material way, we usually think of angels or saints walking around wearing long white robes and choirs singing in the background. The only activity we imagine these strange beings engaging in is never-ending worship of some invisible God, who is as cloudy, nebulous and undefined as heaven itself.
And then we wonder why no one is excited about traveling to this place!…
Do you want to understand heaven better than you have in your entire life? Do you want to have a true experience of heaven, right this second? You can without reading another chapter. Simply try this experiment:
Take the page you’re reading and crinkle the corner. Now listen to the sound it makes. Then grab the chair you're sitting on with your hand and squeeze. Feel how hard it is. Then take a deep breath and let your lungs fill with air. Smell the odors of the room you’re sitting in. Finally, look around and see all the various shapes and colors of the objects that are before you.
I’ll tell you a secret: Heaven is going to be like that. Heaven is physical.
Our Final Destination
…Did you ever see, The Wizard of Oz? Remember how Dorothy and her three friends go off in search of the things they each want most in the whole world? Things they feel they either lost or never had to begin with? One wants courage, one intelligence, one a heart, and one a true home. The moral of that story is that you really don’t have to embark on a long journey to a see a wizard in order to secure those things. In fact, if you really want to find them, you probably don’t have to look farther than your own backyard.
Heaven is a little like that. People think of it as something so far off, so unclear and hazy, that they can’t focus on it. They don’t realize that what they’re looking for is right under their nose…
To put it simply, our final destination as humans is not some unidentified point of light zillions of miles from where we are now. Nor is it some psychological state of mind. Our final destination, ironically, is right here on good old planet Earth. The Bible makes it crystal clear that at least part of heaven will be this "new Earth." And it will be the same earth we’ve lived on during our lifetimes, the same Earth that has been the home to billions of human beings over the long course of history. But like human beings, the Earth itself is going to experience a death and resurrection of sorts…
Our Fellow Travelers
…A tremendous part of the happiness and pleasure that we are destined to experience in heaven will not come from our incredible new bodies, or from our incredible new surroundings. Rather, it will come from the people we are with, from our fellow travelers…
Now what does this mean in practical terms for our life in heaven? Simply this: we are going to see all the people we knew and loved who have died, once again. If you're reading this now and your mother has died, rest assured that you’re going to see her again. If your father died, you’re going to see him again. If your brothers or sisters died, you’re going to see them again. As long as these loved ones make it into heaven, we’re going to see them all again…
Let's step into the future for a moment. Think about what we've discussed in the last few chapters, and now, try to make it real. Close your eyes and do your best to make the experience of heaven personal.
You know that when you see your friends and relatives there someday, you’re going to see these people in the flesh. You’ll be able to recognize them immediately, and they're going to recognize you. Imagine what that first moment will be like-- the first instant when you see your mom, your dad, your husband or your grandmother. It may be that you haven’t seen them in years and years, and now they’re right there, standing two feet in front of you. What do you think your reaction will be?…
Do All Dogs Go To Heaven?
Since we’ve been describing heaven as an all-inclusive vacation, it’s only fair to ask: Are pets allowed at this resort?…
We spoke a little about that first morning in heaven-- the first moments of that remarkable reunion, when sons and daughters reunite with their mothers and fathers after ages of being apart. Well, we left out one important detail in that description. We didn’t say that in the midst of all the excitement, in the midst of all the laughing and crying, just as you’re hugging your mom or dad for the first time, you shouldn’t be surprised if you suddenly feel something wet licking your hand. You shouldn't be shocked if you feel a paw anxiously poking at your leg. When you look down, you can well guess what you’re going to see-- your old, faithful dog. Only he won't be old and sick, like the last time you saw him. He’ll be young again, and he’ll be as vibrant and alive and exuberant as he was years ago, when you used to run with him and play with him for hours.
This is not pie-in-the-sky, wishful thinking. This is the truth. This is Christianity. Heaven is going to be filled with animals. Every single pet you ever had in your life is going to be there. Every dog, every cat, every parakeet, every bunny, every goldfish, every gerbil. God loses nothing…
Our Tour Guide
Wouldn't it be great to go on vacation and have your own personal planner and tour guide? Someone who could assist you in planning your trip, and then show you the best sights to see once you arrive? Someone who could anticipate your every need beforehand and then help facilitate arrangements so that you could get to where you were going quickly, safely and efficiently?…
Well, if something like this is desirable for the trips we take on Earth, don’t you think the same would hold true for a trip to heaven? God is the king of all travel agents and heaven is his five star resort. He knows exactly what kind of help we need in order to get to paradise, and it should come as no surprise that he’s arranged to provide each and every one of us with a personal tour guide, of sorts.
Who am I talking about? Who are these heavenly travel assistants? You know them very well-- they’re called angels. Angels are pure spiritual beings created by God to assist in carrying out His will. The Bible seems to indicate that there are zillions of them!…
Rest In Peace? Not!
…Our ultimate destination is not static, cloudy and boring. It is dynamic; filled with activity, pulsating with energy. It is a place of Life, not sleep.
When we get to heaven, we won’t know what to do first. As someone once said of Paris in the springtime, the only problem will be where to be happiest. Heaven is going to be a vast wonderland of activities, comprising all that nature has to offer, with fascinating possibilities for new sights, new sounds and new sensations. And as we’ve seen, there will be an incredible variety of cities to live and play in, as well. We’ll have instantaneous access to all these places because our bodies will be completely at the service of our mind, and will be able to take us wherever we want to go in a moment.
T.S. Eliot said that human beings should be explorers, no matter what their age. In heaven, we’ll get that chance. There will be so much to see and investigate, so much to enjoy-- and so much time to do it in. We’ll be able to go on sightseeing excursions to a million different counties, cities, planets, galaxies and universes.
How would you like to take a daytrip to Venus? How about a tour of the Andromeda galaxy? How about spending a weekend in ancient Rome (now restored to brand new)? How about a camping outing with the dinosaurs? Don’t be afraid to let your imagination run wild!…
The Highlight Of The Trip
…Throughout this book, we've talked about all the wonderful people we'll meet and places we'll go in the afterlife. But nothing is going to compare with the thrill of meeting God. God is infinitely higher than any created being. Therefore the joy we're going to have when we meet him is going to be infinitely greater than any pleasure we feel meeting some exalted person here on earth.
We all know how much fun it can be to meet celebrities or sports figures. People go to great lengths to get back stage passes to concerts just so they can see their favorite rock stars and ask for autographs. Well, God is the king of all celebrities! He's been famous for over a million years. He's the greatest artist who ever lived. He's a world champion fighter who's never lost a bout. And he wrote the Bible, which makes him the number one, internationally best selling author of all time.
But God is even more than that…
Your Ticket To Heaven
…There’s only one more question left for us to deal with: where do we sign up? How can we get our ticket to heaven?
After all, how much would you pay for a ticket to a place like this-- a place where you’re going to have life everlasting, life with your family and friends, life without suffering, life as a super-being in a super-world? What would you do in order to gain entry into this community?…
Let’s say you were going on vacation to Hawaii, and on the day of the trip you went to the airport, stepped up to the ticket counter, and found out that someone had already purchased the ticket for you. In fact, not only had the airline ticket been bought, but the entire package was yours for free—transfers, hotels, helicopter rides, daytrips, everything! All you had to do was follow the signs to your gate, and board the plane. How surprised and happy would you be?
Well, that’s exactly what God has done for us. He’s already purchased our tickets to heaven…
