Articles
You Can Go to Heaven
If the overwhelming desire of your life is not going to Heaven when you die and leave this world, you are living without the grandest hope you can have. Jesus ascended back into Heaven in order to make all things ready for us (Jn. 14:1-6). He is the true and living way, and no one in our generation can come to God except through Christ. If Heaven was an impossible destiny, Jesus would have told us. But we know where Jesus is, and how to get there from here.
Any Christian who doubts whether he can go to Heaven or not has not yet learned what it means to live by faith (2 Cor. 5:7). If a Christian wonders about his eternal destiny it is due to either a lack of faith in God's promise of eternal life, or to sin in the Christian's life, of which he is unwilling to repent. There can be no other explanation.
Of course, there is no room for arrogant confidence, either. We have to learn that going to Heaven is a provision of God's mercy and grace. We could not "earn our way" there. It takes our submissive, obedient faith coupled with the benevolence of a loving Father in Heaven and the sacrificial death of our elder brother to accomplish it. Not one of us has "braggin' rights." Remember, it was our fault that Jesus became the sacrifice in the first place.
Since we can go to Heaven, we ought to do more planning for it (Col. 3:1-2). If our hearts are there - truly there - I think we would talk about Heaven more. Our conversations with other fellow pilgrims would focus more on our common journey to the celestial city. We would not be so enamored with earth-life, because we would be "homesick" for Heaven. Abraham felt the pangs of such longings for home, because he was a man of faith (Heb. 11:8-10). Oh that we could have the faith of Abraham!
"On Jordan's stormy banks I stand, And cast a wishful eye. To Canaan's fair and happy land, where my possessions lie. I am bound for the promised land; I am bound for the promised land; O who will come and go with me? I am bound for the promised land."
