WHAT JESUS TAUGHT ABOUT HEAVEN? ( Part 6 )

Pastor Christopher Choo

Lesson  3288

WHAT JESUS TAUGHT ABOUT HEAVEN? ( Part 6 )

Heaven is more than a place

Paul, as a faithful witness of Christ and His gospel, knew that the hope of Heaven will bring him closer to Christ.

So he had no fear of death or dying.

He wrote famously in Philippians 1: 21-24 that " For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain ".

He even experienced an out-of-the-body experience in which he was granted a vision of heaven - which glorious experience he was not permitted to share. But it must have motivated him  to long for Heaven when he wrote in

2 Corinthians 5:8 (NIV)

"We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord."

Heaven for him was not just a place but an unbroken fellowship with His Lord and Creator.

Abba Father, Paul understood it clearly that Heaven is not just a place but a state of being in the Presence of the Godhead. 

Paul said for a believer to be “absent from the body” is “to be at home with the Lord” (2 Cor.5:8 ).

Heaven is thus an immediate destination. Jesus assured the penitent thief on the cross that upon his death he would immediately be with Him in Paradise

(Luke 23:43).

Thank You for this reassurance that we will awaken from the short sleep of death to find ourselves in the everlasting arms of Jesus our Risen Saviour.