What Happens…When We Get To Heaven? 

There was a child born blind and by the grace of God surgeons were able
to operate on the child with the prayer that the child’s eyesight would be 
restored. After the surgery the parents removed their child’s bandages and
listened with joy as their child for the first time in their life looked around 
the child proclaimed, “WOW! MOM, DAD, NOW I KNOW WHAT YOU 
LOOK LIKE AWESOME DUDE!! I NEVER EXPECTED ANY OF THIS AT 
ALL!! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE? WHAT IT 
WOULD BE LIKE TO SEE ALL THE COLORS AND THE SKY, THE 
CLOUDS AND OH THE SUN!! WHAT IS THAT CALLED UP IN THE SKY? 
Mom and dad explained it is called an airplane. With tears in their eyes that 
flowed down their cheeks they heard their child ask, WHY DIDN’T YOU 
TELL ME ABOUT ALL THIS AND PREPARE ME? The parents replied to 
their child, “Honey, we tried to explain everything to you but it is tough to 
explain and there is no way we could accurately explain everything to you.”

His name is Chris, he is a bright, intelligent, fourteen year old with a big
loving heart and a tumor in his head that was sucking the life out of him as 

Chris wrote this poem:

I have for many useless hours contemplated eternity. I have prayed in the 
night by the cold and lonely side of my bed for the peace and strength of 
our living God. And I still wonder: Will I be saved? I wait with hope in my 
heart, I am struggling, O Lord, to stay alive, I am losing my sacred strength. 
I am living a life of confusion and death is very near. I ask you reader, 
whoever you may be, take my trembling hand and warm it with care and 
sympathy. I believe that love is the sole purpose of man’s life and without 
love, life is sterile and without meaning. But with love, life has wonder; with 
love, life has color and beauty.

In this world how many are so caught up in the materialism and money that 
they lose the meaning and purpose of life? In the process they fail to hear 
the words of Abraham Lincoln: “The best thing about the future is that it 
comes one day at a time” Sadly many fail to live life one day at a time and 
according to a poll taken by Newsweek Magazine, people have all kinds of 
ideas of what heaven will be like as the poll indicates:

19% of people believe heaven looks like a garden
13% say heaven looks like a city
17% don’t know

As I read these statistics I found myself wondering what the other 51% who 
did not answer this poll might think heaven will be like? 

I wonder if discussing heaven is like when the surgeon general of the 
United States of America first issued dire warnings that smoking increases
the possibility of cancer? All of a sudden cigarette companies and smokers 
did not like the surgeon general of the United States and they quit buying 
and reading the newspaper as they did not want to hear anymore from the 
surgeon general. After all they have a right to smoke and, it is their life.

I wonder how many at this moment deep down inside are that way with the 
Bible? JUST CANCEL IT!!

Open your Bible to Colossians 3:1-11, and lets begin by looking at 
Colossians 3:1-4, which is a bold statement from the Apostle Paul; and an 
Invitation…with a reminder,

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that 
are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that 
are on this earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with 
Christ in God. When Christ who is in our life appears, then 
you also will appear with him in glory.

What the Apostle Paul is telling us in this passage is that our focus should 
Be…our eyes should be…on our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and not on
that of this world. For being heavenly minded is really the only thing that
will make us earthly good. 

Colossians 4:5-9:

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you; immortality, 
impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is 
idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In 
these you once walked, when you lived in them. But now put 
them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk 
from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you 
have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on 
the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after 
the image of its creator. 

The story has it, that a law firm sent flowers to its associates in another
state congratulating them on its new offices. Through a mix-up at the 
Florist, the flowers that arrived at the law firms new office read, “With 
deepest sympathy.” The flowers that arrived at a funeral home read, 
“Congratulations on your wonderful new location.”

Heaven will be like that for us, not sympathy, but a wonderful new location.
For heaven will be a sanctified place with holiness and where no evil will 
be present. In heaven people who would not talk to you or I on this earth 
as we know life, are in for one big surprise. They will have to sit next to you, 
to me, at the right hand of God and at the table as we all eat together. In 
heaven all live the words, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” 

Think about it! In heaven when one proclaims, “OH MY GOD,” they are not 
saying God’s name in vain. One is proclaiming the joy of standing in the 
very presence of God and looking God the Father directly in His eyes. In 
heaven there will not be lying and cheating, stealing or trying to take
advantage of another human being. 

Colossians 3:10-11,

and put on new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge 
after the image of its creator. Here there cannot be Greek 
and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, 
Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all. 
(Scythians were barbarians, from north of the Black Sea.)

In heaven we won’t have to worry about suntans or tan lines, going to the 
beach and looking good. For in heaven there is no sun or moon, seas or
beaches as there is here on earth as we know life.

Listen to the words John wrote, Revelation 22:22-27,

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the LORD 
GOD the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of 
sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, 
and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall bring there glory 
unto it, and its gates shall never be shut by day, and there 
shall be no night there; they shall bring into it the glory and 
honor of the nations. But nothing unclean shall enter it, nor 
anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only 
those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

The lamb of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who sat in the Upper 
Room with His disciples knowing who was going to sell Him out for some
coins. Knowing who would deny knowing Him three times before the cock
crowed. Knowing in His hour of need they would not be there and Jesus 
took the bread, broke it, and said to His disciples, Take, eat, this is my 
body, broken for you. Eat this often in remembrance of me. Then after 
supper Jesus blessed the cup and told His disciples, Take, drink, this is 
my blood of the New Covenant, shed for the forgiveness of many. Drink 
this often in remembrance of me.

The question has been asked, “What happens when we get to heaven?

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to quote the words of Martin Luther 
King Jr. from the tops of my lungs: FREE AT LAST. FREE AT LAST, 
THANK GOD ALMIGHTY I’M FREE AT LAST. The very first time I thought 
I was lost, THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, I’M FREE AT LAST”; my dungeons 
shook and my chains fell off, this is religion I do not know. THANK GOD 
ALMIGHTY, I’M FREE AT LAST; for I never felt such love before. THANK 
GOD ALMIGHTY, I’M FREE AT LAST.

For in heaven there will be no disease, no mental or physical challenges, 
as all will be free. All will experience that special, special moment, that I 
can’t wait to die for:

“I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses. And the 
sound I hear falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses. And He walks 
with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own. And the joy 
we share as we tarry there. None other has ever known.”

I know this to be the truth for the Bible tells me so and the Bible is more 
reliable to each and everyone of us than AAA or Map quest on our 
computers can ever be. 

John 14:1-3,

Let not your heart be troubled; believe also in me. In my 
Fathers house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have 
told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go 
and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take 
you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

Father God,

Thank you for your promise of everlasting life through your Son Jesus Christ. 
Thank you for the promise of eternity in heaven. TO GOD BE 
THE GLORY for through Jesus Christ we 
can truly be FREE AT LAST. 
Amen

 

 
Image of Jesus at Heaven's Gates is from 
a book of Bible stories published in 1887. 
From:  Karen's Whimsy
 

 
JWM10/08/2006



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