Heaven: What is it Really  Like?

When Jesus comes, all the good people who have died, will be waked up and go home together with the good people who are still alive at that time.

The Bible tells us that Heaven is so wonderful there are just no words to tell about it. One of the things we can do is tell about some of the sad-bad things of this earth that will never be in Heaven or in the Earth when it is made all new again.

Have you ever been sick or in pain? Or have you had an accident and got badly hurt? Well, in heaven no one will ever get sick or hurt. Not even your pets! Never again will you feel the terrible sadness and loneliness that comes when a person or animal that we loved so much, dies. No one will ever die any more.

Have you ever had someone be real mean to you? Perhaps a school bully has beaten you up. Or maybe someone has told untrue tales about you and got you in trouble. Maybe other children have called you names or made fun of you. That will never happen in God's kingdom, because all who go there will have learned to be kind and courteous.

Many children in the world today have a very hard time. Some have no Moms or Dads to look after them, and have to work hard or even beg, to try and get food. Some are often hungry and may not have hardly any clothes to wear. Other children may have parents who drink alcohol and then are very cruel to them. In Heaven there will always be plenty of good food, and it will all be free. No cruel or bad people will ever go there. All cruel or bad people will either have gone to Jesus and asked Him to forgive them and make them good and kind, or if they refused to do that, they will not be taken to heaven.

Have you had people yell at you and tell you to go away, or get out? Can you imagine how nice it would be to live where everybody is your friend? And not just friends, but really good friends! You could go anywhere you wanted and ALWAYS know you’d be welcome there. Even small children will play freely and happily in the fields, forests, or streets and NEVER be in any danger. There will be no borders or fences or ‘No Trespassing’ signs, and you will be free to go anywhere and everywhere you chose.

 Have you ever been made sad because someone you trusted lied to you? Perhaps they tricked you with a mean and nasty joke. Well in Heaven, you will always be able to depend on what anyone tells you for no one will ever tell lies and everything spoken will be true.

Have you ever had something you really liked stolen from you and you felt so bad? Or maybe someone took your bike and smashed it on you? Well, in Heaven you could leave your possessions anywhere and they’d never be stolen or damaged by anyone else.

Have you perhaps had a break-up in your family? Or have you been made sad and afraid by fighting and quarrelling in your home? Well that kind of thing will never be any more, all will be in agreement on the important things of life, and because no one will be selfish, there can be no fighting there. No one will ever be unkind or cruel to anyone or any thing. No one will ever kick or hurt a pet. Even the animals will all get along happily together.

 - No harmful or hurtful things that bite or sting, lurking to spoil anyone’s fun;

- No disease or decay, all is beautiful;

- Satan and his nasty angels will not be there to temp you to disobey God any more or to try and hurt and spoil the lovely things God has made. No selfish, greedy or mean people will be there either;

- No fear of death and accident that spoils even the happiest occasions here;

- No harsh or oppressive laws; the only law is the Law of Love based on the character of our loving God, and no other limits exist to perfect freedom and joy;

- No-one was unwanted, homeless, unhappy, or sick- ever;

- No taxes, oppression, fear, poverty, sickness or death, and all things are free- no money worries or bills to pay! 

In the Beginning, when God made Adam and Even, the very first Mommy and Daddy on earth, they did not have to worry about clothes. They had a special Robe of Light that covered their bodies and looked like a lovely, shiny white coat. This was really the Glory of God around them and it was all the clothes they would ever need.

When Adam and Eve sinned and disobeyed God, that lovely Robe of Light just faded away and they found themselves bare. It was not at all God’s will for them to be bare, it is not ‘natural’ for humans to be bare, like some people try to tell us. Adam and Eve first tried to make clothes out of fig leaves but God showed them that this was not enough. God made the first coats for them of animal skins; probably sheepskins. God was showing them that their sin brought death and pain to the earth, and only through death and suffering of their Creator, could they ever hope to return to the family of Heaven. Now in Heaven, the pure Robe of Light will be ours to wear again forever.

The angels all have special musical instruments to play. The Bible calls it a harp, but just what a wonderful harp it really is, we can’t even imagine! When we all reach that wonderful Sea of Glass, a Heavenly Harp is one of the things we will be given by Jesus Himself!

Now on this earth, if I go and buy a musical instrument, even if I buy a very good one and pay a lot of money for it, I still have to spend years learning how to play it. I have to have a music teacher and take lessons, and practice long, hard hours to learn. Now when we are given this Heavenly Musical instrument, we will right away be able to play it beautifully and join in with the Angel Choir and orchestra to sing happy songs of Praise to God and Jesus. What a treat that will be!

Jesus Himself will place on each one of our heads a special crown, made just for us personally. It will have a bright jewel star in it for each person that we have helped to be ready for Heaven. Some crowns will have many stars and others just a few, but each person will be fully happy with his or her crown and will never be jealous.

Each of us will have a lovely home of our own to keep forever. Never again will anyone be thrown out because he can’t afford the rent. Never again will people sleep in the streets because they have no home.

These homes will be in the wonderful city, the New Jerusalem. Later when this Earth is all made new again, we will build our own country homes wherever we want to, just the way we like them. We will each have our own gardens and fruit trees also.

 In this world, having a job is hard sometimes. People who have jobs are often unhappy with them, and people who are out of work have to try so hard to find a job so they can earn enough money to live on. But in Heaven, God will have a special job for each person that is saved from this earth. What will those jobs be like?

We don’t know too much about it, but the Bible says we will be a kind of special servants for God, something like the angels. You see, when Satan and 1/3 of God’s angels rebelled and left their jobs in heaven to fight against God, there were many job openings left vacant. The redeemed will fill those empty places.

Whatever job we are given, we can be sure it will be one that will make us very happy. We will work with the lovely angels also. Even on this earth, there is nothing that is more fun than working for God! 

In the very heart of the Universe, there is a place called ‘Heaven’ and in the very heart of that place is God’s headquarters. His throne room is such a bright and wonderful place and so very large that we can’t even image it!

This is the nerve-center of the Universe and right now most of the attention is on US! Yes, most of the attention of God and His mighty angels and even the other worlds that have not sinned, is all on this little sin-sick planet. All the Heavenly family was so very sad when Adam and Eve decided to join with God’s enemies in rebelling against God. The angels even cried.

All through the long years they have been watching and the angels have been working with God to try and redeem some of us poor lost sinners. We are told that the angels sing for joy when a sinner decides to give his heart to Jesus and learn to obey God instead of rebelling any more.

The angels are like lightning bolts as they come and go with their assignments from the Throne of God. Man’s ideas of a spaceport are nothing along side of what could be seen there at the heart of God’s Universe.

The most important Person that the redeemed will want to see is our own dear Savior, Jesus. To look into His face and see how He really knows and loves each one of us will be the greatest thrill we will ever know.

We will weep as we see the terrible scars on His hands, feet and side and the marks on His head from the thorns and the stripes on His back from the lashes. In heaven we will realize more of the Wonderful Love that caused Him to go through all that for us. He would have done it for you alone if you were the only one who needed a Savior.

Jesus will be the only one who has scars in Heaven. Those scars will tell the Universe what sin is and what it does, it destroys and hurts all! Sin is not funny and it is not fun – it is a terrible, deadly thing that will never happen again in God’s universe, once this earthly conflict is over.

Each of you reading this have your very own special guardian angel sent by Jesus to protect you and to try and influence you to do good and give your heart to Jesus. They stay with us from birth to old age and death, unless we choose Satan’s side so strongly that they have to leave us.

When Jesus returns, we will get to see our own special angel and we can ask him to tell us about the many times he has helped us and even saved our lives that we know nothing about. All the angels love us because we belong to Jesus and our special angel loves us more than even our Mom and Dad.

We do not worship angels or pray to them though. They are created beings just like we are but they have never sinned. We worship God and Jesus and when we want to ask for help from the angels, we ask our Heavenly Father, God, in the Name of Jesus to please send the angels to guard us and help us.

In the amazing book of Revelation, we are told about the lovely Sea of Glass that surrounds the Throne of God. This place is so big and so shiny and bright that it is said to be like a Sea of Glass mixed with fire! It must be like the throne room of an earthly king where people come to see him but the King of the entire Universe has the most amazing Throne Room, brighter and more lovely than anything we can imagine. We will all stand on that Sea around the Throne and sing and worship God. There each one of us will be given our Special crowns and Harps by Jesus Himself. Each one of us will hear the words from our dear Savior, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the Joy of the Lord."

We have some of the description of the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation. John was shown a bit of what it looks like. It has walls of Jasper, and Gates of Pearl. Its very streets are paved with pure Gold and its foundations of precious jewels look like it is sitting on a Rainbow!

It will not be like some of the dirty, crowded cities we have here, Oh No! It will have lots of room and will be clean and bright and beautiful to live in.

One of the special things that we are told about in the book of Revelation that John was shown is the amazing ‘Tree of Life’. This is the tree that used to be in Eden before Adam and Eve rebelled against God and lost Eden. When people eat the fruit of this tree, they never die and never get sick. Not ever!

This tree has many trunks and grows on either side of the River of Life. It is like no other fruit tree on earth because it bears 12 different kinds of fruit and has a new crop every month! It says also that the leaves of this tree are for healing. I don’t know if that means we will eat the leaves or not, but we will certainly eat the wonderful fruit! I wonder what it will taste like?

In this world we have come to have a pollution problem. Pure sparkling clean water that you can safely drink is getting rare. But Revelations says in Heaven, out of the very throne of God, there comes a wonderful River of Life. Its waters are so clean and life giving that to drink of it is a wonderful pleasure and will make all strong and well who enjoy its waters.

 There are a few people on earth who have heard the angels sing. (Remember the shepherds on the hills of Bethlehem?) Those who have, never forget the wonderful music they make! It is like nothing earth can match. Even our loveliest and best music on earth sounds out of tune and harsh alongside of their pure songs.

They are so carefully organized and present the loveliest music to God and to Jesus. We will get to join with them and learn to sing as they do.

How terrible to the ears of those heavenly angels must the loud, harsh popular music of today sound? Did you know that before he rebelled against God and was cast out of heaven, Satan, then known as Lucifer, was the director of heaven’s choir? Yes indeed! And since he knows all about music and its effects for good, he also knows how to use music to get effects that are bad and hurtful.

It is he who is influencing most modern rock and beat music and he is doing it to harm our minds and to get us more involved in sinning against God. Even ‘christian rock’ is not at all Christian, but is designed by Satan as a trick and a trap.

Jesus will always be our Special Friend, Brother and Teacher. He will take us on field trips and answer all our questions about things we don’t understand.

Especially during the 1,000 years that we will spend in Heaven before Satan and all his followers destroyed forever and this earth is re-created like in the beginning, we will get to see all the records that the angels have been keeping all the years of earth’s history.

You know, there are people who have told many lies about the things that have happened on earth to try and cover up some of their wicked deeds, but nothing is ever hidden from the Watchers and Holy ones that God has assigned to keep the records. They never miss anything and they never tell anything but the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

There are many things that it will be so amazing to know the truth about and so many stories about people who have been killed for their faith in Jesus and hidden away where nobody knew about them, but in heaven all those stories will be told. Do you have questions you would like to know the true answer for? I sure do!

As I said before, we will join with the angel choirs in making lovely music to Praise Jesus and God. There will also be a special ‘New Song’ called the Song of Moses and the Lamb, that we will sing and because it is a song about being saved from this earth of death and sin, the angels will not sing it with us but will just listen as we sing about how good God has been to rescue us from this sin-sick earth.

Like to have a Lion for a pet or a leopard? In heaven all animals will be your friends. They will not be afraid of you and you will not be afraid of them.

When I was young, I loved to explore the fields and woods. Do you like to explore too? We can explore all of Heaven and also the planets in the whole universe, and it is not like ‘Star Trek’ full of terrible monsters or dangerous things. Oh no! It is all peaceful and lovely. We can go wherever we want and see all the beautiful things that we can’t even imagine.

The Blind will see, the Deaf will hear, the lamb will run and leap for joy, those whole can’t talk will sing and shout, those who have damaged brains will be all healed.

On this sad old earth, those who are the most faithful followers of Jesus and who love to obey His Law are often hurt and even killed by those who want to follow Satan or have their own religious ideas forced upon others. In Heaven never again will the dragon-head of persecution arise to make afraid God’s little children.

Not only will we travel in space and see the amazing wonders of the stars, but we will also be invited to tell the story of what Jesus has done for us to people on other worlds. Oh yes! They will be excited to hear from us personally our story of what it was like to be saved from sin and death and how good God has been to each of us and the Wonderful gift of our Savior Jesus.

What will these other people look like? We don’t know but we do know that they are not monsters or ugly things but very nice to look at and interesting to talk to.

In the New Earth we will have country homes and gardens which we will build and plant ourselves, just the way we like them. We will not have such back-breaking work as we have on this earth to build and grow gardens, no, it will be much more pleasant, the weeds and thistles of this earth, that came because of sin, will be all gone.

I have always had crooked legs and short breath so I could never run very well, but up there we will be able to run for days if we want to- and never get tired.

We will also be able to FLY! Have you ever wanted to fly? I don’t mean with an airplane, but just you yourself, take off and fly. Often we dream we can fly but can’t when we wake up, but we will fly and even travel in space.

We could go on all day about the fun things we will do in Heaven, but here briefly are a few more;

Learn about the secrets of plants and animals God has made;

Visit and play with and share with millions of friends;

Eat the most delicious food especially fruit from the Tree of Life;

You could plan the most wonderful projects and know you could complete them;

Talk to all the good people you learned about in history and the Bible stories and hear them tell their stories.

I am homesick for Heaven, how about you? Talk to Jesus about your place in His Plan when the entire Universe will again be in harmony!  Today - before the great day of the Lord, when it will be too late to decide - Jesus is inviting you:

"Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." Matthew 11:28. John 6:37; Revelation 3:20.

Say to Him words like these: "Dear Savior, I do come to Thee! I open wide my heart’s door to Thee! Come in and abide with me, for I give myself all to Thee for ever!"

And those who accept and follow Him rejoice in the miracles of grace that are daily theirs and, with all others who are truly following Him, look forward with joy beyond this sad world to His matchless kingdom throughout the countless ages of eternity.