Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Do Not Pass "Go" . . . Go Straight to Heaven

Each week I ask people to text me a question during the service and I choose one or two to answer in my BLOG. Last week I talked about death and I got this question: What's the point of Earth if Heaven's going to be so awesome? Why didn't God send us straight there?

Answer: Thanks for your excellent question, but I have to say there is an assumption in this question, which I will point out in a minute. There are at least four reasons that God does not send us directly to heaven, and here they are.

First of all, we are born on earth, so it would be impossible to bypass earth and go straight to heaven. The only inhabitants that start their existence in heaven, without going to earth, are angels. Angels are not born, they are created, man is generated (gened) through a birth process, involving both human and divine decisions.

The second reason God doesn't take us directly to heaven it that it is not His choice. There is an assumption in the question that whether we go to heaven or not is God's choice, but that is not true, it is our choice. God does not send anyone to either heaven or hell. He allows us to make that decision based on our acceptance or refusal of Christ as our savior and leader of our life (Jn. 3:16 & Acts 4:12). God has provided the way for everyone to go to heaven, based on our obedience to His plan. God doesn't choose who goes, we do.

A third consideration is that we grow, change and learn a lot about God while we walk this earth. God wants to "do life" with us here on earth. He made earth for us as a proving ground and a place for us to grow spiritually. Check out the parable of the talents (Matt. 25) and also how Jesus will reward us (I Cor. 3) to get a further picture.

Finally, we influence other people while we are here on earth. I am going to heaven because of the earthly influence of someone in my life, my father. I know that there will be people in heaven because of my influence and hopefully there will be people in heaven because of you. If we were to go straight to heaven, others would miss out on our influence and we would miss so much of what God wants us to expereince. We need to be ready for heaven at any moment, but willing to stay here and work with Him as long as His purposes require it.

Good question!

2 Comments:

Blogger Ros said...

Is there a podcast of your sermon? I didn't hear it and not sure if you covered this but at what point do you think people go to Heaven? Straight after they die? or when the world ends and everyone goes together?

6:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Don, Nice to meet you again. This is Matt, Metavee Tansirikongkol, a crazy student from Thailand. Don't know if you can still remember me. I can't find your email on the Internet, so please email me at metavee@hotmail.com. It would be nice to keep in touch again.

2:47 AM  

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