HEAVENWARD FOCUS
Alas! how we forget that we are but strangers and pilgrims on the
earth; that we are journeying to our eternal home, and will soon be there!
I love to
live on the brink of eternity.
David Brainerd
One of the
best evidences that we are truly seeking Heaven is the possession of hearts
that are weaned from this world. None will ever enter the Father’s House on
high in whose soul the first fruits of heavenly peace
and joy does not grow now. He who finds his satisfaction in temporal things is
woefully deceived if he imagines he can enjoy eternal things. He whose joy is all gone when earthly possessions are
snatched from him, knows nothing of that peace which “passeth
all understanding.” And yet, if the auto, radio, newspaper, money to go to the
movies, were taken away from the average “church member,” what would he then
have left to make life worth living?
A.W.
Pink
An Exposition of Hebrews, The Reward of Faith, Chapter 9, Heb. 11:15-16.
When you
leave this world, will you be known as one who accumulated treasures on earth
that you couldn't keep? Or will you be
recognized as one who invested treasures in heaven that you couldn't lose?
Randy Alcorn
Excerpted from The Treasure Principle by
Randy Alcorn © 2002 by Eternal Perspective Ministries, p. 79.
When Jesus warns
us not to store up treasures on earth, it's not just because wealth might be
lost; it's because wealth will always be lost.
Either it leaves us while we live, or we leave it when we die. No exceptions….Realizing its value is
temporary should radically affect our investment strategy…. According to Jesus, storing up earthly
treasures isn't simply wrong. It's just
plain stupid.
Randy Alcorn
Excerpted from The Treasure Principle by
Randy Alcorn © 2002 by Eternal Perspective Ministries, p. 13-14.
You can't
take it with you- but you can send it on ahead.
Randy Alcorn
Excerpted from The Treasure Principle by
Randy Alcorn © 2002 by Eternal Perspective Ministries, p. 17.
Many
Christians dread the thought of leaving this world. Why? Because so many have stored up their treasures on earth, not in
heaven. Each day brings us closer
to death. If your treasures are on earth, that means each day brings you closer to losing your
treasures.
Randy Alcorn
Excerpted from The Treasure Principle by
Randy Alcorn © 2002 by Eternal Perspective Ministries, p. 40.
He who lays
up treasures on earth spends his life backing away from his treasures. To him, death is loss. He who lays up treasures in heaven looks
forward to eternity; he's moving daily toward his treasures. To him, death is gain. He who spends his life moving toward his
treasures has reason to rejoice. Are you
despairing or rejoicing?
Randy Alcorn
Excerpted from The Treasure Principle by
Randy Alcorn © 2002 by Eternal Perspective Ministries, p. 43.
The
Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought
most of the next. It is since Christians
have begun thinking less of the other world that they have become so
ineffective in this. Aim at heaven and
you get earth thrown in; aim at earth and you get neither.
C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity.
Has this
world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret? There are better things ahead than any we
leave behind.
C.S. Lewis
If we really think that home is elsewhere and
that this life is a “wandering to find home,” why should we not look forward to
the arrival?
C.S. Lewis
Aim at heaven
and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at
earth and you will get neither.
C.S. Lewis
A continual
looking forward to the eternal world is not a form of escapism or wishful
thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do.
C.S. Lewis
If I find in
myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most
probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity, Macmillan, 1960, p. 119.
A
contemplative focus on the beauty of heaven:
1.
Frees us from excessive dependence upon
earthly wealth and comfort.
2.
Enables us to respond appropriately to the
injustices of this life.
3.
Produces the fruit of endurance and
perseverance now.
4.
Exerts…purifying power on the heart.
5.
Teaches us about the essence of true
religion.
Sam Storms
Excerpted from: One Thing, Christian Focus, © Enjoying God Ministries, 2004, p.
164-169, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
Not everyone
thinks it helpful to focus on the future. They’ve bought into the old adage
that people who do are “so heavenly minded they’re of no earthly good.” On the
contrary, I’m persuaded that we will never be of much use in this life until
we’ve developed a healthy obsession with the next. Our only hope for
satisfaction of soul and joy of heart in this life comes from looking intently
at what we can’t see (see 2 Cor. 4:16-18; Col. 3:1-4). Therefore, we must take
steps to cultivate and intensify in our souls an ache for the beauty of the age
to come.
Sam Storms
One Thing, Christian Focus, © Enjoying God Ministries, 2004, p.163-164. www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
Is it not
strange that we can for one moment lose sight of
heaven, and the increasing glory; and grovel in the dust to gather pebbles, for
the pleasure of throwing them afterwards away?
Mary Winslow
Tragically,
many Christians spend precious little time thinking about their eternal home.
Instead, they work themselves into oblivion building temporary homes and
hideaways.
Hank Hanegraaff
Resurrection, W Publishing Group, 2000, p.
86.
I would not
give one moment of heaven for all the joy and riches of the world, even if it
lasted for thousands and thousands of years.
Martin Luther
Heaven must
be in thee before thou canst be in heaven.
George Swinnock
A Puritan Golden Treasury,
compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 134.
All is shadow
here below! The world is a shadow; and
it passes away! The creature is a
shadow; and the loveliest and the fondest may be the first to die! Health is a
shadow; fading, and in a moment gone!
Wealth is a shadow; today upon the summit of affluence, tomorrow at its
base, plunged into poverty and dependence!
Human friendships and creature affections are but shadows; sweet and
pleasant while they last, but, with a worm feeding at the root of all created
good, the sheltering gourd soon withers, exposing us to the sun's burning heat
by day, and to the frost's cold chill by night! Oh, yes! 'Passing Away' is indelibly inscribed upon everything here
below! Yet how slow are we to realize
the solemn lesson: "What shadows we are, and what shadows we
pursue!" Unconverted reader, what
is your life but a vapor that passes away? and what
are its pursuits but shadows; unreal, unsatisfying, evanescent? Your rank, your wealth, your honors, your
pleasures, are but phantoms which appear but for a little while, and then are
lost in the deeper shadow of the grave, and the still deeper and longer shadow
of eternity! Oh, turn from these dreams
and hallucinations, and, as a rational, accountable, immortal being, on your
way to judgment, fix your mind upon your solemn, endless future! You are going
to die! And, oh, when that dread hour comes, so real and appalling, how will
your past life appear?
Octavius Winslow
A man cannot
look up to heaven and look down upon the earth at the same time.
Thomas Brooks
London's Lamentations, 1670.
The glory of
the star, the glory of the sun – we must not lose either in the other. We must not be so full of the hope of heaven
that we cannot do our work on the earth; we must not be so lost in the work of
the earth that we shall not be inspired by the hope of heaven.
Heaven is not
here, it's There. If we were given all we wanted here, our
hearts would settle for this world rather than the next. God is forever luring us up and away from
this one, wooing us to Himself and His still invisible Kingdom, where we will
certainly find what we so keenly long for.
Elisabeth Elliot
Keep a Quiet Heart .
It has pleased
God lately to teach me more than ever that Himself is
the fountain of happiness; that likeness to Him, friendship for Him, and
communion with Him, form the basis of all true enjoyment. The very disposition which, blessed be my
dear Redeemer! He has given me, to be
anything, do anything, or endure anything, so that His name might be glorified,
- I say, the disposition itself is heaven begun below.
Samuel Pearce
And people
who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as
missionaries. They forget that they too are expending
their lives... and when the bubble has burst they will have nothing of eternal
significance to show for the years they have wasted.
Nate Saint
God and
eternal things are my only pleasure.
Henry Martyn
A life once
spent is irrevocable. It will remain to be contemplated through eternity.…The same may be said of each day. When it is once
past, it is gone forever. All the marks which we put upon it, it will exhibit
forever.…Each day will not only be a witness of our conduct, but will affect
our everlasting destiny.…How shall we then wish to see each day marked with
usefulness…! It is too late to mend the days that are past. The future is in
our power. Let us, then, each morning, resolve to send the day into eternity in
such a garb as we shall wish it to wear forever. And at night let us reflect
that one more day is irrevocably gone, indelibly marked.
Adoniram Judson
The Life of Adoniram Judson, Anson, Randolph
& Company, 1883, p. 13-15.
Why are not
our hearts continually set on heaven? Why dwell we not there in constant
contemplation?… Bend thy soul to study eternity, busy
thyself about the life to come, habituate thyself to such contemplations, and
let not those thoughts be seldom and cursory, but bathe thyself in heaven’s
delights.
Richard Baxter
A heavenly
mind is a joyful mind; this is the nearest and truest way to live a life of
comfort, and without this you must need be
uncomfortable. Can a man be at a fire and not be warm; or in the sunshine and not
have light? Can your heart be in heaven, and not have comfort? [On the other
hand,] what could make such frozen, uncomfortable Christians but living so far
as they do from heaven?... O Christian, get above.
Believe it, that region is warmer than this below.
Richard Baxter
The Saints Everlasting.
A little
faith will bring your soul to heaven; a great faith will bring heaven to your
soul.
C.H.
Spurgeon
Live near to
God, and so all things will appear to you little in comparison with eternal
realities.
Robert Murray McCheyne
The nearer
anyone is to heaven, the more earnestly he desires to be there, because Christ
is there.
John Owen
Meditation on the Glory of Christ, 1684, ch. 12.
Because the
church doesn’t really have heaven on
its mind, it tends to be self-indulgent, self-centered, weak, and materialistic.
Our present comforts consume too much of our thoughts, and if we’re not
careful, we inevitably end up inventing wrong fantasies about heaven – or
thinking very little of heaven at all.
John MacArthur
No
Earthly Idea About Heaven taken from The Glory of
Heaven by John MacArthur, copyright 1996, Crossway Books, a division of Good
News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois, 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org,
page 47.
We don’t seek
to escape this life by dreaming of
heaven. But we do find we can endure
this life because of the certainty of heaven. Heaven is eternal. Earth is
temporal. Those who fix all their affections of the fleeting things of this
world are the real escapists, because they are vainly attempting to avoid
facing eternity – by hiding in the fleeting shadows of things that are only
transient.
John MacArthur
No
Earthly Idea About Heaven taken from The Glory of
Heaven by John MacArthur, copyright 1996, Crossway Books, a division of Good
News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois, 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org,
page 51.
In one sense
it is possible “to be so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good.” But
in a much deeper sense, it is impossible to be of any real earthly
good unless we are heavenly minded. Only the heavenly minded will
have the patience to continue faithful in God’s work when it becomes hard,
unappreciated and seeming unending. There is no greater cure for
discouragement, fatigue or self-pity than to think of being in the presence of
the Lord one day and of spending eternity with Him. We should make no apology
for being heavenly minded.
John
MacArthur
Hebrews Commentary, Moody, 1983, p. 331.
Christians whose faith does not extend to heaven will have their eyes on the
things of this world and will wonder why they are not happier in the Lord.
Nothing in this life, including God’s most abundant earthly blessings, will
give a believer the satisfaction and joy that come with absolute assurance of
future glory.
John
MacArthur
Hebrews Commentary, Moody, 1983, p. 334.
Unless
there is within us, that which is above us, we will soon yield to what is
around us.
Alfred Gibbs
Don’t think such heavenly mindedness makes us pilgrims no
earthly good. Don’t pooh-pooh it as looking at the world through
pie-in-the-sky, rose-colored glasses. Sojourners who think the most of the next
world are usually those who are doing the highest good in this one. It is the
person whose mind is only on earthly things who, when it comes to earth, does
little good.
Joni Eareckson Tada
Heaven: Your Real Home, Zondervan, www.Zondervan.com, 1995, p. 110. Used
by Permission.
When a Christian realizes his citizenship is in heaven, he begins acting as a responsible citizen of earth. He invests wisely in relationships because he knows they’re eternal. His conversations, goals, and motives become pure and honest because he realizes these will have a bearing
on everlasting reward. He gives
generously of time, money, and talent because he’s laying up treasures for eternity. He helps spread the good news of Christ because he longs to fill heaven’s ranks with his friends and
neighbors. All this serves the pilgrim well not only in heaven, but on earth;
for it serves everyone around him.
Joni Eareckson Tada
Heaven: Your Real Home, Zondervan, www.Zondervan.com, 1995, p. 110. Used
by Permission.
He who thinks
most of heaven will do most for earth.
Author Unknown
There is a
way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we can be thinking, discussing,
seeing, calculating, meeting all the demands of
external affairs. But deep within,
behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and
adoration, song and worship, and a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings.
Thomas Kelly
Testament of Devotion, Harper, 1941, p. 35.
Surely it is
not wrong for us to think and talk about Heaven. I like to find out all I can
about it. I expect to live there through all eternity. If I were going to dwell
in any place in this country, if I were going to make it my home, I would
inquire about its climate, about the neighbors I would have – about everything,
in fact, that I could learn concerning it. If soon you were going to emigrate,
that is the way you would feel. Well, we are all going to emigrate in a very
little while. We are going to spend eternity in another world… Is it not
natural that we should look and listen and try to find out who
is already there and what is the route to take?
D.L.
Moody