Joni cannot wait to be reunited with everyone in heaven one day!
SHAUNA: Hi, I’m Shauna. Welcome to Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope. Boy Joni, you’ve written so much about heaven and we talk about it all the time, don’t we?
JONI: We really do Shauna and I love talking about it. I can’t wait to get to heaven. I can’t wait to drop to my knees and kiss the nail-scarred feet of Jesus. I can’t wait to see King David and Peter and James and John. I want to tell Moses that I memorized the 10 Commandments when I was a kid. I want to tell the Apostle Paul how much I’ve enjoyed Romans 8. Because you know, for all of us, there are biblical characters [besides Jesus] we just can’t wait to meet; we are so looking forward to sitting down and having a discussion with these people. And I would like to meet Joseph. I would like to meet Daniel. And almost every time I think about Bible characters that we meet in heaven, I hear the Holy Spirit whispering to me, “Then Joni… make sure you live a life in agreement with the things they wrote about.” The Holy Spirit has a good point, doesn’t he?
Could we enthusiastically greet the Apostle Paul who wrote, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” if we made a practice of stepping on others to get ahead? Could we look forward to hours alone with the Apostle John who said, “Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him” – if in truth we settled for a halfhearted, ho-hum devotion to the Jesus that John was ready to die for? Would we really feel comfortable with David who said, “I cry out to God Most High” if for us, prayer is usually the last resort? How could we be thrilled to meet the Lord Jesus face-to-face after clinging to, on earth, the very sins for which he died? It is impossible to hold onto bad habits while holding onto a desire to touch the nail-scarred hands of Christ. No one can hope for heaven while consciously clutching to sins he knows to be offensive. True, holy living is rugged and demanding, but its heavenly rewards are precious. It is heavenly minded people who nail their sin to the cross; who desire, like John, to lean upon Christ; who abandon themselves, like Paul, to be caught up into a third heaven; who wish, like David, to sit at the feet of His Lord.
Yes, that’s a struggle. And the entire chapter 7 of Romans assures us holy living will always be a struggle. But think of it as the best way of showing your love to Christ and getting ready for heaven! Someone once said, “Of all the things that will surprise us in the resurrection morning, this, I believe, will surprise us most: that we did not love Christ more before we died.” I don’t know about you, but that’s one surprise I want to avoid. And so now, here, on earth, I want to cut away every single sin that entangles.
And it’s why I’m grateful for my wheelchair. The hardships of my chair help expose the sin in my heart that I need to get rid of. And suffering has a way of doing that. Once you see your afflictions as a way of cleaning up your heart and getting you ready for heaven, you won’t be quick to call them “sufferings.” Here I am in my wheelchair. And just yesterday in my office, I was struggling with low blood pressure and pain. But for the most part I’m grateful for the suffering. I consider my paralysis a gift because it forces to the surface all the bad habits and thoughts that I need to confess and give over to Jesus. Oh, friend, when in heaven, you meet Jesus face-to-face, your loyalty in your hardships will give you something tangible, something concrete to offer him. And I know something else that will be tangible and concrete to offer him in praise: it will be a life that is aligned with the words of Moses, and Peter, and James, and Paul, and especially – Jesus.
© Joni and Friends