My Heaven's Forever

Little Church Mouse is not affiliated with my
expressions, statements, or faith perspectives
posted here on Our Lighted Path.

... ... ...

... I'm not a cruel person. Now is not a time of rejoicing in this earth of ours. There is war and dying.

Yet there also is the Savior we have in Jesus, who tells us not to worry.

Yet still, with all that's happening, with many of us feeling great loss, and with some of us wrestling over questions about Heaven, now is as good a time as any for me to say what I believe about God's will for forever.

For starters, I take God at His word, but I don't take His every word literally. And I don't take every word of the Bible as anointed by God, but in cases like Solomon's, as lessons as allowed by God to bring about repentance, correction, or the better way in Jesus.

Then, secondly, I want to say a little of what I feel in the Spirit, about Heaven.

My own faith convictions:

• No, not every soul chooses to go to Heaven (through faith in Jesus); and, even though we are supposed to counsel loved ones and others about Heaven, we're not supposed to dwell on questions about whether a soul is with God, or is in hell. We're just supposed to live and witness Jesus.

•  Yes, there is judgment before we enter into rest with God, or Heaven. But I believe God's judgment is for each of us individually, before we pass away. ... Faith says we are judged not guilty in Christ while we are still walking or living in earth. We each stand before God each day, covered by His verdict. So, for each of us, passing away is only a formality that brings us to that place of protection that means we've done as best we can, that place in Jesus where we know God means, "Servant, well done."

That place is known as Heaven. And as an elderly pastor once taught our congregation, I believe we rise up individually, spiritually, at death in Christ, each to his own godly welcome. (Absent from the body, present with God.)

 • I believe the church does NOT lay dead for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years then all of a sudden rise up altogether to be judged. I know, in Spirit, that the dead in Christ have been rising up from death, individually, ever since Jesus went before us to prepare a place for us; and I believe the great many prepared churches that have arisen over the past 2,000 years are reflections of those who have already gone before us, spiritually, to Heaven.

• I believe Heaven is a purely spiritual (not physical) place. From my Bible studies, I personally believe many souls are at rest there, and that many other souls are in perpetual prayer over this world, the way parents pray over their children, and that some of those in prayer are crying out like in the book of Revelation.

• I do not believe God has streets of gold for us to travel in Heaven (like CeCe Winans once sang about because of traditional misunderstandings). I believe the Bible's gold streets are a representation of pure pathways the world will see one day, and that it could be possible that some group here in earth may even pave a street in gold during a time when the earth has been cleansed again, just to say all gold, and everything else in earth, is Heaven's, and that money is no great need, anymore.

• I personally imagine the new earth, the New Jerusalem, that God will have for His physical creation after all the world's senseless death is done with, will be a long time in the making, just as the present earth was a long time getting to the point we are now. And I believe in Jesus' return to the present earth during the worst war the world has ever known. I believe in Jesus bringing all the spiritual power He has kept in Heaven, when He returns to triumph during that terrible war. I believe God's plan is to release all of Heaven into the New Jerusalem, into that whole new world, at a time only He knows. And I personally believe there will be no more war, pestilence, sickness, nor senseless death from then on. I believe mankind's life spans will naturally be again as at the first, never to be reduced to only a few years again. And I believe life in the wild will be much, much different: as different as now is from the time of dinosaurs.

I imagine a possible two or three suns giving faint light instead of nightfall upon the earth that the meek will inherit, and a bee that has lost its sting. I imagine that, if a mouse still exists, it will have to be a domesticated mouse, no different from a house cat or the tiny mouse that ran across the wood floor of a country church sanctuary one evening.

And although I can't imagine what God will will us to eat then, I do know there will be peace, even if we do not speak.

... I believe that's God's plan for forever.