What is Heaven Like and What Will We Do There?

Pastor Jim Verkest, Mosinee United Methodist Church

When we discuss what Heaven is like, we must depend on what we can find revealed in Gods Word. This is because we dont have eye witness accounts of what Heaven is like, except for what is shared in the visions of the Apostle John and comments from Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:2. Heaven and various forms of Heaven are found in over 1000 references in Scripture. From these references, we can draw many conclusions.

Perhaps the most concrete conclusion that we can come to is that Heaven is the House of God. The heavens and the earth were part of Gods work on that first day of creation. God created Heaven that first day and declared His work good. I would submit that, if God thought it was good, we would think it was perfect. There are many biblical references that describe Heaven as the House of God (1 Kings 8:27; Ecclesiastes 5:2, Isaiah 63:15, and Matthew 6:14 to name a few). Heaven is also referred to in Psalm 11:4 as Gods Holy Temple.

What do we know about Heaven? We know that there are heavenly hosts there that are not human, i.e., angels, cherubim, and seraphim. We know that the heavenly hosts carry out specific tasks for God. In Mark 8:11, we read that Heaven is the place where miracles come from. It was from Heaven that the manna came to feed the Israelites in the wilderness (Exodus 16:4). It was also from Heaven that Jesus came and to Heaven He returned. He is described in John 6:33 as the true bread of ...