Everyone in their right mind wants to go to heaven. Folks may have a distorted view of what heaven is and who will be permitted to go there, but they indeed want to go.

However, it seems to be an altogether different matter when we ask the question, “Who wants to go to heaven, now?” Not as many, even Christians, would raise their hand on that one! Here is an interesting question, “If we don’t want to go to heaven now, do we really want to go?” Is going to heaven just a “worst case scenario?”

The world has done a good job teaching us, haven’t they? They have taught us that death and life after death is evil and should be shunned in every way. The bad thing is, to a large degree, we have believed them!

The apostle Paul said, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). Paul, of course, was inspired by God. He was perfectly aware of what he was saying and had great reason for saying it. He understood that heaven was an unimaginable place prepared by an All-powerful God.

The same apostle said in 2 Corinthians 5:2: “For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.” For Paul, going to heaven was the best case scenario, but he realized that if he lived on in the flesh, it would be an opportunity to help more people get where he wanted to go (see Phil. 1:22-24).

Let us work on our attitude toward heaven. May we understand that if we are living faithfully to our Lord (not to be confused with perfectly), eternity will be the greatest thing that ever happens to us!

Daren Schroeder