The images many people have in their heads about Heaven today simply aren’t true. Heaven won’t be somewhere you’ll just sit on a cloud and play a harp all day! Here’s how Scripture addresses popular misconceptions about Heaven:
- Myth: Heaven isn’t real.
Truth: Scripture has proven over and over again to be a reliable source of information, and it mentions heaven – over 600 times! If you started deleting all the references to Heaven in the Bible, you would take out some of the most important passages ever written and have nothing left of eternal significance. If the Bible is true, Heaven is real.
- Myth: Being a good person gets me to Heaven.
Truth: Being a good person will make you a good citizen – but it won’t get you to Heaven. Jesus tells us plainly in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Christ and Christ alone can take us to the Father’s house. The route to Heaven points to Jesus. It’s all about going home to be with Him.
- Myth: I’ll be an angel when I get to Heaven.
Truth: People don’t become angels when they get to Heaven. Angels are created by God for a distinct and unique purpose. Angels are God’s creation. We are God’s new creation. We are in Christ, and we are a different sort of creature than the angels.
1 Corinthians 15:51–52 describes our new bodies like this: “For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality.” Our new bodies will be immortal, imperishable, and eternal – but not angelic.
- Myth: We will live up in the clouds.
Truth: The Apostle John described the beauty of heaven in the Book of Revelation, and chapters 21 and 22 provide a virtual tour of the new heaven and the new earth. John was given a glimpse of this glory, and God told him to write these things down so God’s people could be encouraged.
The flyover in Revelation 21 and 22 is filled with amazing images: streets of gold, gates of pearl, and a Crystal Sea. John speaks of the New Jerusalem, the great city of our God that will be about 1.9 million square miles! Every image in Revelation illustrates something even more real than we can know or understand.
- Myth: I’ll be bored in Heaven
Truth: Heaven can’t be boring because Jesus is there! There will be singing and worship in Heaven – an endless hallelujah to our King. But we’ll have other things to do, too. There will be fun and laughter in Heaven; you’ll have friends to meet and places to go. We’ll enjoy banquets and have adventures and serve the Lord.
According to 1 Corinthians 2:9, Heaven will be more wonderful than we can imagine, “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived—the things God has prepared for those who love Him.”
Dig even deeper into these topics in Dr. Graham’s book Heaven: Your Best Life Is Yet to Come. We’ll send you a copy as our thanks for your gift to help others discover the hope of Heaven through the ministry of PowerPoint.
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