Looking Forward to Heaven: Daily Doses of Hope

By Wendy Neill

Do you ever wonder what heaven is like? The Bible describes heaven as an enormous, stunningly beautiful city with a foundation of jewels, a river flowing down the middle of Main Street, the tree of life bearing fruit every month, and the constant presence of a God who will wipe every tear from our eye.

But are we missing out on the joy of anticipation?

 

Questions we will explore in this study include:

• What does God look like in heaven?
• What happens right after I die?
• Will we receive rewards in heaven?
• What will we not experience in heaven?
• What about loved ones who don't believe in God?
• How do I teach my kids about heaven?
• How can I keep my eyes fixed on heaven when I go through trials?

As you read, you will be encouraged to dream about your future home. Wendy Neill skillfully weaves her own experiences of pain, loss, and hope with thorough research about heaven from the Bible and various scholars. Lift your gaze from your phone, your work, your pain, and even your loved ones for a while. Focus on the glimpses that God has given us of heaven in his Word.

This is a six-week study with five days of reading and reflection each week, followed by questions for further meditation or group study on Days 6 and 7. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wendy Neill
• Release date: Jan 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223001201

Wendy Neill

Wendy Neill has not personally been to heaven. Her own struggle with chronic pain drove her to find glimpses in the Bible of her future home, where there is no pain. She loves inspiring others to eagerly anticipate eternity, sometimes in their final days here.   Wendy has served in various aspects of ministry to children, teens, college students, and women, and has been a speaker at various ladies’ events. Wendy is on the staff of Iron Rose Sister Ministries: speaking, writing blog posts, and raising funds to encourage women across the Americas to connect to God and to one another. Kelly, her husband of 33 years, is a preacher, an educator, and a counselor.

Book preview

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked NKJV taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Dedicated to my daughters, their spouses, their children, and (someday) their children’s children. In our Father’s house there are many rooms. I look forward to a joyous family reunion with King Jesus as our host and the new Jerusalem to explore. Don’t miss it for the world!

Special Thanks

To God be all the glory. There is no greater joy in life than being used in his kingdom work. Thank you, Father, for using an ordinary person like me to encourage others. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for giving me words to describe a place I have never been. Thank you, my precious Jesus, for paving the way for us to join you in heaven.

I owe a debt of gratitude to my best friend and husband of 33 years, Kelly. Thank you for being my biggest fan and for hours of editing. I couldn’t have done it without you. Not many writers have a spouse who was a professor and a preacher to help edit their manuscript! You not only had the knowledge, but that special ability to lovingly challenge my wording and thinking. This study is better because of you. I don’t know which of us will cross over to heaven first, but I love the assurance that we will both be there one day. Let’s keep working together to show others the way.

I am also extremely grateful for Amye Eudy, Julie Kohl, and Hannah Wood. Thank you for taking this journey with me, offering suggestions and corrections, and continually affirming that this was an important project. Elizabeth Trotter, thank you for giving the manuscript the final polish I needed to bring it home.

Dedra Hunter is our talented and thoughtful children’s minister and my friend. Thank you, Dedra, for your input on the Children Can Imagine chapter. I see God making beauty from ashes in your life. Many children will grow up knowing Jesus because of your faithfulness, and they will thank you someday in heaven. I imagine Blake is saving you a seat near his stage where he delights Jesus with performances.

Introduction

I love to travel. I love discovering new places and soaking up new experiences. God has provided a world full of beauty and variety for us to enjoy. His masterful creation includes lush tropical forests, majestic mountain peaks, expansive caverns, endless oceans, tranquil lakes, and seas of flowers for us to explore.

God has also gifted people all over the world with the ability to create. Travel—for my family at least—often involves experiencing creations by men and women in art galleries, museums, concert halls, and theaters.

A good trip also carves out time for rest. For me, that involves reading a good book on a porch with a view. For my husband, rest means a hike in the forest or up a mountain. Many of our trips include visiting family. After a long car ride or flight, we reach our loved ones and are greeted with warm hugs, big smiles, and a place to put up our feet.

Anticipating a vacation is half the fun. When I’ve worked hard and saved for a special destination, the anticipation helps me get through the dull day-to-day minutiae of life or even the outright disappointments and pain. If I can keep putting one foot in front of the other, I will eventually arrive at that magical date on the calendar: my vacation.

The most exciting destination of all awaits those who love the Lord. We are destined for heaven. God is preparing a place there especially for us. Sin has made his creation on earth less than what he intended, yet much of it is still awe-inspiring. How much more beautiful will heaven be, untainted by sin? The Bible describes it as an enormous, beautiful city with a foundation of jewels, a river flowing down the middle of Main Street, and the tree of life bearing fruit every month (Revelation 22:1-2).

The Bible also says that his servants will serve him (Revelation 22:3) and that we will enter his rest (Hebrews 4:1). Those verses seem to contradict each other, but I believe that serving him will be delightful and free from stress, making it much more restful than our work here.

The ultimate joy will be seeing God and our Savior Jesus face to face. We will be greeted with an adoring smile as Christ welcomes us to the place he has prepared for us (John 14:2-4). It will be the best homecoming ever!

But are we missing out on the joy of anticipation?

I’ve been blessed to be a member of nine church congregations in the United States. In all those places, I’ve heard very few sermons or classes on the topic of heaven. It has been my experience that even among Christians, heaven doesn’t usually come up in conversation until after someone dies. Even then, we speak of it in whispers and general terms.

I want to encourage you to anticipate heaven. Lift your gaze from your phone, your daily chores, your work, your pain, and even your family for a time. Focus on the glimpses of heaven that God has given us in his Word. Anticipating heaven helps us endure the hardships of this world. As Rick Atchley put it, Our future hope is a present help.[1]

WEEK 1 – I CAN ONLY IMAGINE

Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel,

Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still?

Will I stand in your presence, or to my knees will I fall?

Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all?

I can only imagine.[2]

Day 1 - Informed Imagination

The MercyMe song "I Can Only Imagine" is one of my favorite songs about heaven. And I’m not the only one. The song won the Dove award for Song of the Year in 2002 and went on to become a hit on non-Christian stations in 2003, making it to #5 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart published by Billboard magazine.[3]

What is your own reaction to the lyrics? How do you think you will feel when you stand face to face with Jesus?

––––––––

Why do you think non-Christians reacted so positively to this song?

––––––––

I can only imagine. It really is hard to imagine how we will feel. The emotions are almost too powerful. But that word only doesn’t sit quite right with me. It implies that we can’t really know what it will be like in heaven. We can only imagine. That is partly true; however, God gives us glimpses throughout the Bible of what heaven will be like. As we journey through this study, I’d like us to practice what I call informed imagination. Let me explain.

My mother-in-law is a world-class gift-giver. If giving gifts were an Olympic sport, she would be a gold medalist. She buys Christmas gifts throughout the year and always knows what size we wear and what gifts we will enjoy. Not only does she carefully select the gifts, but she also finds fun ways to wrap them.

Instead of just writing To (Name), From Grandma on the tag, she will put something like, To the Crafty College Girl, From the Crafty Grandma. If my husband picks up that present and reads the tag, he immediately knows it is not for him! He will read the clues within the message and figure out that it is probably for Kendra. Two of our girls enjoy crafts, but Kendra is a graphic designer and an artist, so she is the better guess. And what is inside? We know it must be something to do with crafts, but that could involve knitting, painting, or decorating cookies, all of which Kendra enjoys. Grandma has given her a hint and wants Kendra to guess. But does she really want Kendra to figure it out before she opens it? Not really. That would ruin the surprise and diminish her joy—and Kendra’s.

First John 3:2 says, What we will be has not yet been made known. But we know when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. God has given us glimpses, and I believe he wants us to imagine and anticipate, but he has kept a lot of the details hidden. He wants it to remain a mystery so he can surprise us! This is what I mean by informed imagination. I like what Richard Foster has to say in Celebration of Discipline:

To believe that God can sanctify and utilize the imagination is simply to take seriously the Christian idea of incarnation. God so accommodates, so enfleshes himself into our world that he uses the images we know and understand to teach us about the unseen world of which we know so little and which we find so difficult to understand.[4]

As we begin this study, what are some of the glimpses God has given us about heaven that come to your mind?

––––––––

What are some of the questions you have about heaven?

––––––––

This study will not give you definitive answers to all your questions about the second coming, the thousand-year reign, the end times, and so on. The goal of this study is for you to examine the clues God has given us in his Word and to encourage you to eagerly look forward to heaven.

If this journey is undertaken as a group study, allow each other to dream, imagine, and ask questions. Don’t feel like you must come to the same conclusion as others or as me. Foster an environment of joint exploration and anticipation, not a court of judgment on each other’s theology. Be comfortable living in the tension of knowing some things and not knowing others.

Get ready to use your informed imagination!

Day 2 - God Hints

The moment we say that we can’t imagine heaven, we dump cold water on all that God has revealed to us about our eternal home. If we can’t envision it, we can’t look forward to it. If heaven is unimaginable, why even try?

...Our misguided attempts to make heaven sound spiritual (i.e., non-physical) merely succeed in making heaven sound unappealing.

−Randy Alcorn[5]

––––––––

Let’s look at the hints about heaven that God has given us in his Word, which will inform our imagination and anticipation. Open your Bible to the book of Revelation.

How do you feel about the book of Revelation?

––––––––

For some, Revelation is a scary, confusing book. For others, it is an exciting book. For many of us, we don’t know what to do with it. Our church leaders sometimes shy away from it, and we don’t really know what is in there—like a locked chest we find in the attic. But what if there is treasure in that chest, left by a king? Let’s peek inside and see what treasure we can uncover.

Turn to the very last chapter and read Revelation 22:1-5.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 22:1-5)

Can you picture the scene? We have a lot of questions about heaven, but here God gives us a wonderful gift: a brief look at heaven.

Let’s start with those first two verses. There is a river flowing down the middle of a street. When we hear the word street, we think of cars, but John’s original readers would have pictured people walking and using carts. I wonder if it is like Venice or the Netherlands where the river is also used as a street, with boats for transportation.

What do you picture in your mind on that street or in the river?

––––––––

Verse 2 says, On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. I can’t tell you how excited I am about seeing and eating from the tree of life! I’ve devoted a whole chapter to the topic later, but for now, what do you imagine when you read that verse? How do you think the fruit will taste and smell?

––––––––

The next verse says, No longer will there be any curse. Let the full impact of that verse hit you. What is your initial reaction?

––––––––

No more curse. Wow. The curse that came after Adam and Eve sinned has been—and continues to be—widespread in our countries, in our headlines, in our day-to-day experience, and in our natural environment. Let yourself bask in the thought of a world without it. The curse of sin, no more. We will spend a little more time on this verse in week five.

The next phrase