When you think about it, there are certain things we can do only here on earth that we will not be able to do when we get to heaven. I’m not talking about sinful things. I’m talking about good things, very good things.
Take patience, for example. There will be no need for patience in heaven because everyone will be perfect. We can only be patient with fallen, imperfect people in this life; with the driver who won’t let us merge into their lane, with the child who is screaming at the top of his lungs in the checkout line, with the bank teller who messed up our deposit, and on and on and on.
Another example is witnessing. Once we get to heaven, we will never again be able to witness. We will no longer be able to lead someone to Christ. Everyone we will know in heaven will have already been led to Christ! Witnessing belongs in this life alone.
And then there’s hope. We can only hope for things that have not come to pass. But in heaven, every good thing that we could possibly imagine will have already come to pass. No one will be hoping for anything in the future in heaven. We will only be shouting “Amen!” to the present. No, we can only hope for something now.
The same goes for faith. Now is the time to believe God. In this life alone – when God can seem so distant, his promises hopelessly unfulfilled, with sin surging around us, and the physical world so, well, physical – this is the time for faith. Never again in eternity will we have the opportunity to believe God in this way.
And that, my friend, is why our faith is so valuable.
“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”1
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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