Heaven: A Comprehensive Guide to Everything the Bible Says About Our Eternal Home

by Randy Alcorn

C. S. Lewis said, “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.”

Christian I met in passing once told me it troubled him that he really didn’t long for Heaven. Instead, he yearned for an Earth that was like God meant it to be. He didn’t desire a Heaven out there somewhere, but an Earth under his feet, where God was glorified. He felt guilty and unspiritual for this desire. At the time, my eyes hadn’t been opened to Scripture’s promise of the New Earth. If I could talk with that man again (I hope he reads this book), I’d tell him what I should have told him the first time—that his longing was biblical and right. In fact, the very place he’s always longed for, an Earth where God was fully glorified, is the place where he will live forever.

We will still be people when we die and go to Heaven. This isn’t a disappointing reality—it’s God’s plan. He made us as we are—except the sin part, which has nothing to do with friends, eating, sports, gardening, or reading.

The things we love are not merely the best this life has to offer—they are previews of the greater life to come.

If we don’t base our perspective of Heaven on a clear understanding of our coming bodily resurrection and the truth about the physical nature of the New Earth, our concept of being with God will be more like that of Eastern mysticism than of biblical Christianity.