Then the devotional contact today. Today' s Bible reading begins in the first
verse of John Chapter 14. Christ says do not be troubled your heart.
Believe in God, believe also in me, in my father' s house,
there are many dwelling places. If it wasn' t me, I
would have told you. I will therefore prepare a place for you, and
if I go and prepare the place for you, I will come again and
take you to myself, that where I am, you also may be.
If I asked you a dozen people who know about the sky, you'
d probably get all kinds of answers. Even Christians have different ideas about what
it is, where it is, and what it will be like. Some
people imagine that heaven is an ethereal and dreamy place, where the inhabitants are
incorporeal spirits, but this is contrary to what the Bible teaches. In short,
heaven is God' s home, separated from and beyond creation. It
is a different realm of existence, but it is a literal place, with
form and substance and includes the city of Saint the Apostle. John had a
vision of this place and what he saw is recorded for us in chapters twenty
- one and twenty- two of Revelation. A wall with foundational stones and
gates surrounds the city, which has a street, a river, the throne
of God and the tree of life. These are all material objects, though
they far outweigh anything of earthly substance. The Lord Jesus Christ told his disciples
that a place would be prepared for them in their father’ s house.
He also said that he would return to take them there, so that they
could be with him forever. Then they saw how his resurrected body ascended from
the earth and returned to heaven. He is still there today in his physical
body, sitting at the right hand of the father' s throne. When
Christ returns, he will resurrect Christians who have died, transform the bodies of
believers who are still alive, and bring us to the eternal home that he
has prepared for all his followers. Only then will we understand what heaven is.