What is Heaven Really Like?

The common understanding of Heaven is that in Heaven we are going to be singing praises forever and ever. One worship leader even went as far as saying that we are going to be doing praise & worship there for eternity. If that is true, Heaven doesn't sound too attractive to me. That leaves out a lot of the simple pleasures we take so much joy in. For instance, like the joy of a baby, or the pleasure of drying our clothes in the warm sunlight, or the satisfaction of a job well done, or just simply enjoying a good book or a newspaper in the morning. Paul said now we see "through a glass darkly," a poor reflection in a dim mirror (1 Corinthians 13:12). But some day this dark glass will be removed and we will be able to see clearly and be able to enjoy the real meaning of being a human being created in the image of God. You see, the point is when the dark glass is removed, the view of Heaven is not going to change. It is going to become clearer. When that happens, I believe the things that give us pleasure in this world will make much more sense and give more pleasure.

Having said that, we also must admit that many things in Heaven will be clearly beyond our experience on earth. Paul reminds us that "no eyes have seen, nor ears heard, no mind has conceived" what God has prepared for us in Heaven. And so it is not wise to jump into some conclusion about Heaven. Even if we can come up with the most wonderful and glorious description of Heaven, it is still not going to do justice to what God has prepared for us there. But it is worth trying.

What is Heaven really like? I do not really know. So where do we begin talking about something we do not know so much about? The Bible talks about it as a real place and not as a place built on clouds and layers of air floating over the universe. The Bible uses language we can understand and imageries we can grasp with our finite minds, like for example, the architecture of heaven, according to Scripture, is rife with beautiful gems and precious stones (Revelation 21:18-21).