Do you ever grow weary longing for heaven? It will be dazzlingly beautiful as all God’s people are gathered up to him, praising him together. So get your heart ready for that glorious moment.
Occasionally my heart grows weary of waiting for the Lord’s return.
And I bet you feel the same. Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and the other day I read that familiar Bible verse that always gives us chills. And you know it well. I’m certain 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, they really get your heart pumping, too, for: “the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. [And then] we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” Woo hoo! I mean, those two verses pull everything into focus, don’t they? ‘Cause it’s going to happen. It’s on the horizon. It’s really going to occur in the twinkling of an eye.
Oh, friend, if you and I are blessed to be living at the time of Christ’s return – and don’t you think that every day, it feels like we really could be that generation – well, if we are living when Jesus comes back, we shall suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, we’ll find ourselves in the embrace of our Savior at the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. Heaven will have arrived. It will be that day that Isaiah foretold long ago, a day when the anointed of the Lord - that’s us - when we shall obtain joy forever, sorrow and sighing will flee away, and we will enter Zion with singing and with everlasting joy crowning our heads! Woo hoo! It’ll be exactly like that last stanza of that old hymn that goes, “From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast, through gates of pearl streams in the countless host, singing to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Alleluia!” And then, I love the way CS Lewis captured that moment; I’m borrowing his ideas in Till We Have Faces here, it says that the Lord’s overcoming of the world will be a lifting of the curtain of our five senses, and we shall see the whole universe in plain sight. Life and immortality will no longer be dim thoughts, but vivid and strikingly real. At first, the shock of joy may burn with the brilliant newness of being glorified, but in the next instant we will be at peace and feel at home, as though it were always this way, that we were born for such a place. And at that moment, earth will seem like a half-forgotten dream, pleasant enough, but only a dream.
And somebody’s then going to shout, “Are we all here?” And there will be others who echo, “Yeah, we’re here!” And the wedding supper of the Lamb will begin. Oh, I can almost see it in all its crystal-clear glory, dazzling brilliance! Just as it says in Revelation 19, “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.” Are you ready? I hope you are. And are the children you know, the boys and girls in your life, are they ready? Again, I hope so. And to help with that, I want you to know that I just finished a new children’s book called “The Awesome Super Fantastic Forever Party” and I’d love for you to take a peek at it. Because all the things that I’ve shared today? They are biblically based. I’ve described heaven as the Bible conveys it. And this is the heaven that I want kids today to get excited about. And so, help the children you know get their hearts pumped about 1 Thessalonians 4. Share the true story about heaven that will give them chills. Get their hearts prepared for that “twinkling of an eye” moment, and get excited with me about heaven and the “Forever Party” at Joniradio.org.
© Joni and Friends