I was recently asked by a local newspaper columnist about my thoughts on heaven to be part of an article she was doing. So below is what I contributed
I recently read something about one person's thoughts on heaven. He said that there would be three surprises for him when he got to heaven 1. Some people he expected to be there would not be there. 2. Some people he expected not to be there would be, and 3. He was there.
I do not know what heaven will look like. I think streets of gold and pearly gates are just metaphors to try to explain something grand and beyond words. My thought is that it is being in the fullest presence of God. It is not necessarily a place but a state of being.
In the Episcopal Church there is a prayer used at funerals which states: "Grant that, increasing in knowledge and love of thee, he/she may go from strength to strength in the life of perfect service in thy heavenly kingdom." (Book of Common Prayer, p.481). So I see heaven as not as static, but as growth. C. S. Lewis in his book The Great Divorce pictures heaven as a process of going from darkness to light and the journeying soul transforming along the way. So I take it as not just a place where people just sit on heavenly thrones, but of activity.
Getting back to my original statement about - who would be in heaven and who won't be; I don't think that just because someone says "I accept Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior" automatically guarantees entrance into heaven. Jesus said his disciples would be known by the fruit they produced - the way they loved and lived. Also Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew that those who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited those sick, alone, and in prison were serving him and would be welcomed into the Kingdom. Those who did not were not welcomed. There are a lot a people who talk a good game about God, but don't live it. And there are folks who don't talk a lot about it, but do it; and they may not even be believers. I think those are some of the folks some might be surprised to be in heaven; and some of the others, who just talk it, may be those not to be seen there.
Patrick+
