Heaven.
Your view has holes.
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Hmm
I wonder.
I think you will find that Heaven is a very limited existence. The only reason you do not want to leave is because you are conditioned to it. There is no freedom in Heaven. Perhaps that will not matter? But there is a reason why suicide is frowned upon.
Heaven has one drawback. You have to die to get there.
Richard
I thought our existence would be amplified, not diminished, with our glorified bodies and all.
There are plenty of times I want to leave and plenty of times I want to stay.
Heaven isn’t “heaven” without freedom to me. It’s a prison of eternal nothingness then. You confuse Christianity with atheism.
I wasn’t aware suicide was merely “frowned upon” and I definitely did not know the reason is because we will be mindless robots in heaven so we should enjoy free will while it lasts.
Jesus also told his 12 disciples, which represented the restoration of Israel, they would judge the 12 tribes. Judgement requires thought, discernment and I’d say volition…
“Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
Jesus also talks about a great reward in heaven (Mr 5:10). Was he lying or mistaken? 2 Cor 5:2 talks about “ For in this tent we groan, longing to be further clothed with our heavenly dwelling.” This seems odd if we have no freedom in heaven. I just think your view is unscriptural.
To live is Christ, to die is gain.
Maybe Christians need to focus more on heaven.
The popular notion of Christians being “so heavenly minded they’re of no earthly good” is a myth. On the contrary, most of us are so earthly minded we are of no heavenly or earthly good. C. S. Lewis said, “It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one.” God commands us to be heavenly minded, and doing so will give us the perspective and motivation to live on earth as he has commanded us (Heb. 11:26-27). Link
Maybe our heads should be in the clouds even though it is fashionable to poke fun at such Christians nowadays.
Vinnie
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You missed the point.(as I guessed you would)
You have a rose tinted view of Heaven, and I am sure you will not be disappointed.
It is just a shame that you see no value in the gift God has given you to live this life first.
I don’t think so. And maybe once your life is done you will realise (too late) what you missed. It may turn your Heaven into Hell.
Richard
I disagreed with your stated point.
My view of heaven is based on scripture. Yours is based on your imagination as evidenced by your complete lack of concern about what the Bible actually says on the issue.
Quite the contrary. This life has immensely more value precisely because of my views on heaven and God as opposed to whatever wish-washy theology you currently embrace that is in fashion.
Like I said, I’ll stick with scripture (and Jesus especially) over your made up views on the afterlife. My treasures are stored in heaven where my Lord and Saviour said they should be.
The more I read on here, the more I realize very few people on this forum actually have views that derive from scripture.
Vinnie
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Yawn.
everybody thinks they know Scripture better than anyone else. The fact is they just cherry pick the stuff that aligns with their views and ignore the rest.
You are welcome to that sort of responsibility. That is not Heaven for me.
FYI my view of Heaven comes from my walking with God for over 60 years. Scripture is the beginning of faith, not the be all and end all.
Richard
You’ve made no attempt to quote it or even dialogue with it.
Glad to know God privately revealed to you the details of heaven that contradict what it says in scripture. Tell me more about your made up doctrine.
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Scripture is not a collection of quotes or citations.
That is how not to read or understand it.
True understanding comes from reading it as a whole.
Richard
I’m waiting for your true understanding of heaven as gleaned from scripture as a whole.
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Why?
You will not believe it.
(Because i cannot point you to all the places it comes from, there is not enough time or space)
Richard
JW theology makes even less sense. If I understand their theology correctly, they claim that only 144,000 people can make it into heaven. So why convert anyone since they would be competition for those seats? If entrance is based on how many you convert, it starts to look a lot like multilevel marketing.
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So you have this special, secret knowledge of heaven that just takes too long to talk about so everyone should just take your word on it. You starting a cult?
Vinnie
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I don’t know the ins and outs of their beliefs but maybe not acting in good faith and attempting to convert people means you are definitely not one of the 144,000 chosen ones?
Keener has some great commentary on the passage. If I recall correctly, it’s a double allusion similar to the lion and lamb passage.
True, but the point of the comparison was making a simple payment.
Interesting. Bedazzled is a movie?
First by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and then redone with Brenden Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley. It’s supposedly based on Faust.
Nope. Heaven can wait. I have life on earth first.
Richard
Or as the liberals in Colorado did one year, remove the hunters and the deer die of starvation. I will never forget the sight of corpse after corpse of frozen deer revealed in the spring when the snow melted, all because the liberals blocked the scientifically-recommended special hunt.
= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =
I recall a lady at an Episcopal church who had a neighbor who occasionally asked what made her so nice to people. Then one Sunday the sermon was about the importance of sharing one’s faith with others, and the lady made the connection between the recital of the Apostle’s Creed as “let us share out faith together”. So she went home, and when she saw that neighbor out in the yard tending flowers she went over and said she had an answer to why she was so nice to people, and proceeded to recite the Creed.
According to the priest this set off a cascade effect: that neighbor brought her whole family to church the next week, and told friends why. People she’d never met started showing up at the lady’s house asking what she had said to that neighbor, and more than a few also started showing up to church. In the end something like sixty or seventy people either became Christians or returned to an abandoned faith, and brought with them as many children and teens.
One never knows . . . .
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Your view of Heaven is weird. How would having an exalted body like Christ’s and living in a realm with no mortal limitations have “no freedom”?
And Heaven with hell!
And mansions!
A Lutheran pastor/priest once preached on this at chapel when I was in grad school. He linked it with Numbers 21:5 – “we loathe this worthless food” – to devastating effect. No mention of fire or brimstone, but I never felt as chilled and in need of a Savior as in those few minutes.
A foursquare pastor I knew once quipped that he knew an awful lot of Christians who needed some gain!
Humor, but with a point: he talked about how too many Christians not only did nothing but actually got in the way of others doing something.
From a Methodist preacher when I was a teen: heaven is where our hands are at work. His point was that it was those people who deeply understood Heaven and longed for it who “got their hands dirty” helping others (this was as I recall right after a big flood had devastated the area).
In Tae-Kwon-Do we were taught to keep our heads high to keep our balance. I suspect this applies to living as Christians.
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I agree.
Also agree. I have sometimes pondered my motivation (besides OCD 
) for all the hours I put into conservation work, and what has come to me is that I want creation around me to look like it was Eden – remembering that Eden was where Heaven and Earth overlapped.
Ditto.
I hope mine are – I don’t really think about it. Though I would be thrilled if every native tree and shrub I plant here turns up in heaven to greet me!
Except you apparently don’t even bother with consulting scripture, you just make up your own views and don’t realize how contrary they are to plain scripture.
From your statement just above, it appears that your foundational belief is post-modernism.
Heh – I sometimes find myself asking, “Can’t someone else do that?” But then I realize that following my Savior means doing things that make me uncomfortable.
A university friend had the same view. Once when he got called for jury duty and ended up actually on a jury and someone asked him why, he said that since we’re supposed to judge angels he figured he should get in some practice.
If that’s true, I don’t want your God – he’s a cruel sort who enjoys making people miserable.
And from your example, cutting out the parts that don’t fit your personal judgment already passed upon God.
Anyone who has actually read it as a whole wouldn’t despise Heaven as you do but would respond, “Cool – gotta bring friends!”
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Perhaps I think outside the box.
And perhaps you need a definition of freedom.
The whole point about life on earth is that we are free to choose. In heaven?
You are programed to only want/do good. That is not freedom.
Reality sucks.
Richard