Resources by Topic: Heaven

I loved spending time recently with NFL players Nick Foles and Chris Maragos on their great podcast, Mission of Truth, which they just started this year.

A few years ago I was a guest on Desiring God’s Ask Pastor John podcast. In this episode, host Tony Reinke and I discuss the question, “What age will I appear in Heaven?” The following is a lightly edited transcript, and you can also listen to the audio of our conversation.

In what form will we be when we see God? Will we be ghostly spirits, floating about? No, we will be resurrected human beings, standing and kneeling, walking and talking, praying and worshiping and laughing, eating and drinking in our new bodies. As Job cried out, “After my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.”

When believers die and go to the present Heaven in the presence of God, do they face any kind of judgment of works at that point, or does all judgment come at the resurrection?

Though the present Heaven is not our final destination, it’s a wonderful place, and it’s understandable that those who have had loved ones die in Christ wonder what life is like for them there. Based on the Bible’s teaching, we know several things.

Could you explain the difference between Heaven for the saints versus Heaven for the martyred saints? There seems to be a distinction, yet we claim all believers will be given a white robe and their tears will be wiped away. 

I was recently listening to Chris Tomlin’s version of “Is He Worthy?”, and that prompted me to share some thoughts related to two favorite passages of mine, Revelation 5 and Daniel 7. 

In this video clip, Randy Alcorn and Greg Laurie talk about having an eternal perspective and how our belief in the life to come should affect us in the day-to-day. 

In this video clip, Randy Alcorn and Greg Laurie talk about what we can expect when we get to Heaven, what we might wear and what we might eat.

God’s people are aliens and strangers, looking for a country of their own. This world, as it is now, under the curse, isn’t our home. But one day not only we but the earth itself will be remade. That earth, the New Earth, will not only be a place made for us but the place we were made for.

In my book Heaven, I share how years ago, Nanci read me letters we’d never before seen translated, written in 1920 by her grandmother Anna Swanson to her family in Sweden. Anna suffered severe health problems. While she was in Montana, cared for by relatives, her husband, Edwin, was in Oregon, working and caring for their seven children day and night.

I sometimes ponder what it’ll be like to see Jesus, to fall on my knees before Him, then talk with Him and eat with Him and walk with Him as a resurrected person living on a resurrected Earth. 

In his Heaven book, Randy says the renewed Heaven will have time and space. If God becomes a part of our new Heaven and Earth combination, will He also be giving Himself over to time and space and cease being omnitemporal?

For Christians, death is not a wall but a doorway. Death is not a last good-bye but a “See you later.” We grieve differently, yet honestly and openly, precisely because we look forward to our reunion and to a New Heaven and a New Earth.