Faithfullyliven:the podcast
Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Do you wish you could understand the Bible better? Do you want to know how you can remain faithful to historic Christianity in our contemporary society? Let's take a journey to explore and learn how to be a faithful follower of Christ. Faithfullyliven, the podcast is here to uplift your soul and encourage you to live a life honoring to God
Faithfullyliven:the podcast
What will Heaven be Like? with Jean E. Jones
What if everything you thought you knew about heaven was wrong? Jean Jones joins us to address and correct widespread misconceptions about heaven. Is it true that good people automatically go to heaven? Do humans become angels? Will heaven be filled with endless harp-strumming? Jean skillfully debunks these myths by grounding her explanations in biblical passages. She reassures us that heaven is not a place of endless monotony but one filled with profound recognition and connection with our loved ones. By aligning our understanding with scripture, Jean offers comfort and clarity, helping us to see heaven in a new, hopeful light.
Connect with Jean
https://www.jeanejones.net/
DISCOVERING THE BIBLE SERIES
Discovering Wisdom in Proverbs
Discovering Good News in John
Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament
Discovering Hope in the Psalms
Discovering the Joy in Philippians
By Jean E. Jones, Pam Farrel, and Karla Dornacher
Immortal: How the Fear of Death Drives Us and What We Can Do About It By Clay Jones
Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Check out the YouTube channel Faithfullyliven youtube.com/@faithfullyliven
Do you want to read about how to live faithfully? Check out the blog http://lyfe102.org
Get a free Road Map to get started learning how to study the Bible https://mailchi.mp/88f9c9405da0/bible-study-road-map
Welcome to Faithfully Living, the Podcast where we learn how to live for Christ in our daily lives. I'm Dwan, your host, and I would like to invite you on a journey with me to explore and learn how to be a faithful follower of Christ. Hey, everyone, welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast where we strive to encourage you to live for Christ faithfully by offering guidance on how to study the Bible, how to understand the Bible better and how to remain faithful to historic Christianity in a contemporary society. So heaven is a place where we, as believers, you know we look forward to, but how much do we really know about it? What does the Bible tell us?
Speaker 2:about it.
Speaker 1:So I am so happy to share this conversation that I had with Jean Jones. We talk about heaven and learn to have a right view of heaven by letting the Bible be our guide. But before we get started with our conversation with Jean, let me tell you a little bit about Jean. Jean E Jones is co-author of Discovering Wisdom in Proverbs, discovering Good News in John and more in the award-winning Discovering the Bible series. She blogs at jeanjonesnet.
Speaker 1:Jean is a member of Women in Apologetics. She's been a contributing writer for crosswalkcom and she's published in Today's Christian Woman and Home Life. She's happily married to her high school sweetheart, clay, who teaches Christian apologetics at Talbot Seminary. They live in California and once were foster parents to three preteen and teen girls. Jean enjoys rooster claws and century eggs in Asia. All right, let's dive into today's episode. Hi Jean, welcome to the show. Hi Flan, thank you for having me. Well, I'm glad to have you here and I'm glad to talk about our topic on heaven. But before we get started on that, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2:Sure, I was raised in a non-Christian home. Neither of my parents were Christians. When I was around 14, I started reading the New Testament because I wanted to know. I believed in God, even though my dad especially didn't. My mom was more agnostic, and I wanted to know how to get to heaven. That was the big thing. I had heard there was a heaven and a hell and I thought, oh my gosh, I'm going to go to hell. What do I do? And different people were telling me different things. So I got a hold of a Bible, finally, and a New Testament and started reading it from the beginning. And by the time I got to the Gospel of John, I understood enough of what it said about the need to come to Christ, and I pray to accept Christ while reading the Gospel of John. So I became a Christian.
Speaker 2:My parents still were not Christians. My dad at first was very disappointed in me that I would do such a thing, but then, not long after, I met Clay. He was my high school sweetheart and we eventually got married and he taught at Talbot Seminary for many years on the subject of apologetics. And my dad has since come to know the Lord, which is amazing, and so have my two siblings. My mom died young. She knew the gospel. I don't know for sure whether or not she ever turned her life over to Christ or not. She knew what it meant, but I just don't know what she did on that. So I've been a Christian for quite a while now, what she did on that.
Speaker 2:So I've been a Christian for quite a while now and I've written five devotionals with my friends Pam Farrell and Carla Dorniker. I write the Bible study portion and the sidebars. They each contribute a devotional to go with each chapter, so it's from three entirely different personalities. And then Carla is also the artist and she does scripture art, which is so helpful for people because she'll put a verse in an illustration so that if you want to color it not everybody does, but if you want to, it's by the time you're done it's memorized. So it's a really super helpful way for people to, to learn to, to memorize without much effort. So done five of those so far all right.
Speaker 1:What are the names of them?
Speaker 2:okay. The first one is discovering hope in the psalms. The second is discovering joy in philippians. The third is discovering jesus in the old. The third is discovering Jesus in the Old Testament. The fourth is discovering good news in John, and the fifth is discovering wisdom in Proverbs. Every one of them has something about apologetics in it as well. Discovering hope in the Psalms talks about how to pray when life doesn't make sense, when you expected God to do one thing and he did something else. Discovering Joy in Philippians gives the evidence for the resurrection and uses the minimal facts argument. The Gospel of John is the evidence that John gives for Jesus being the Messiah. Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament is 12 ways that the Old Testament prophesies about Jesus and how Jesus fulfills those prophecies. And then discovering wisdom in Proverbs also has a section on inerrancy and why we trust the Bible.
Speaker 1:Oh wow. Those are packed full of scripture and insights Wow.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, they are.
Speaker 1:I will put those in the show notes so everybody can check those out. Wonderful, yeah. So I'm excited about our topic. Like I said, we're going to talk about heaven and I think it's good to start with a reliable source. So what does the Bible say about heaven, and how should it shape our understanding of it?
Speaker 2:Great question, because there is a lot of misinformation out there. The Bible tells us that in John 3, 16, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes on him should not perish but will have eternal life. So eternal life is what the Bible talks about. It's a gift from God that he offers to us. That gift of eternal life is described by Paul as being a glorious inheritance. A glorious inheritance so rich that it makes the problems of this world seem a slight and momentary. So it's going to be really, really wonderful. But a lot of people don't know that because they've heard a lot of false things about heaven.
Speaker 1:So that kind of leads us into our next question is like we always get wrong ideas or misinterpretations of the Bible. So what are what would be some misconceptions that we we'd have about, you know, heaven.
Speaker 2:I got all my first ideas about heaven from the Sunday comics. So I had that. It was like, okay, it's got to be white people become angels. They have little tiny wings that don't really look like they could fly anywhere. I also was.
Speaker 2:I read a lot of Mark Twain and Mark Twain had a lot of stuff in there about oh, it's going to be so boring, you know. And Huckleberry Finn, yes, the, yeah, Miss Watson, saying I'm just going to strum your carps all the day long, but I find nine, nine misconceptions about heaven. So one of the misconceptions that people have is that all good people go to heaven when they die. And most people consider themselves to be good people. So they figure if heaven really exists, I'm a good person, I'll go to heaven, and they don't pursue anything past that.
Speaker 2:But Romans 3.23 tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All that means every person has sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And then, just a few chapters later, in Romans 6.23, it tells us that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So it's not that good people go to heaven, it's that God has given a gift that those who turn to him through Jesus Christ and through belief in both God and through Jesus Christ then receive eternal life. So it's the forgiven who get to go to heaven, not the good Right. Another misconception is that people become angels when they die, and there's one related to that, and that is that you've heard that one, yeah, yeah, and one related to it is that people will all have halos and wings in heaven.
Speaker 2:Now Charles Dickens in his book the Little Curiosity Shot wrote that a little girl comes up to little male who's dying and says everyone says that by morning you're going to be an angel, meaning you're about to die, and then you'll be in heaven and you'll be an angel. So this idea that people will become angels is really, really widespread. But that's not what the Bible teaches. It is a misinterpretation of a particular verse In Matthew 22, 30,. Jesus said for in the resurrection people neither marry nor given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. So people think, oh, they must become angels. But it doesn't say that. It says they'll be like angels in heaven. And what it's actually talking about. If we look at the parallel passage in Luke, it's talking about they'll never heaven. And what it's actually talking about.
Speaker 2:If we look at the parallel passage in Luke, it's talking about they'll never die. And since they won't die, they won't need to procreate. And since they don't need to procreate, they don't need to marry. And let me give you the parallel passage in Luke. It's in chapter 20, verses 34 to 36. Jesus says the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage or they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, sons of God being sons of the resurrection. So angels were created beings. They were all created before the earth was created, job tells us. And so they never needed to procreate, so they don't marry. So that's what Jesus was talking about.
Speaker 2:Okay, and that, oh, and the Bible never says that the, those who go to heaven will have halos or wings either. The idea of wings comes from the idea of oh, you become an angel when you go to heaven. The halos actually came from the Middle Ages. The artists at that time would put halos around the faces of important people. So when they painted Jesus or the apostles or Mary, they always put halos around them. But they also put halos. If they did a painting of a donor, they made a halo around the donor. It was just we want you to know who the important people are in this particular scene. That's all it was. But it came to be thought oh, so people must have halos. It was also a way to depict when a face shown. Remember Moses's face shown when he met with God and in the transfiguration, jesus shown as well, and so a halo is a way to depict those two things as well.
Speaker 2:Another another misconception is that people in heaven strum harps and sing nonstop. That's what Huckleberry Finn taught. Of course, that's a misinterpretation of a passage in Revelation that talks about the four living creatures. These four living creatures have six wings and eyes all over them, so it talks about them singing nonstop. It says they never cease to say holy, holy, holy is the Lord, God Almighty, but that doesn't mean they sing it in a loop. The book of Revelation also talks about them doing other things. They gather bowls of prayers and they take things to other creatures and they do quite a few other things. But that it definitely isn't something that the scripture says that people are ever going to do. On and on and on. A fifth misconception is that heaven is in the clouds. All the comic pages that I read on Sunday portrayed heavens as being in clouds. Yeah, you've seen them too. Yeah, people are sitting there on a little cloud, strumming hearts.
Speaker 1:Even in movies they depict it like in the clouds. Yeah, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Now this is a conflation of the three different ways that the scripture uses the word heaven. The first way that the scripture uses the word heaven is simply to mean the sky, like heaven gave rain. That just means the sky. The second way is to mean the physical cosmos, as in Genesis 1-1, where it says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. That's the physical cosmos. And then the third way that it means it is the unseen spiritual realm. For instance, whenever it talks about the Lord's throne is in heaven, it's talking about the unseen spiritual realm. So those are the three different uses of the word heaven that we translate as oh.
Speaker 2:There's a couple of other misconceptions that are really, really awful. The sixth one is that spouses won't know each other in heaven, and the seventh is that all people in heaven won't know each other. I had a woman who was a recent widow write me just in despair saying I just read a blog that says I won't know my husband. What am I supposed to do? What is this true? And it is not true. It is absolutely not true and it takes away one of the biggest comforts that we receive in the Bible. First, it's a misunderstanding. Uh, from the same verse we looked at earlier, that, uh, the people in the resurrection will neither marriage, married nor given in, or ah, let me start that one over. They will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and that again, that's only talking about. You won't be married because you won't be procreating.
Speaker 2:But in Luke 20, jesus says this. This is verses 37 to 38. He says but that the dead are raised. Even Moses showed in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now, he is not God of the dead, but of the living and all live to him. Notice, he knows them, he knows them. He knows Abraham, isaac and Jacob who are currently with the Lord. This mainly comes from a misunderstanding of Isaiah 65, 17, which reads for behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind. That's where people get this scary thought. But number one, people are not former things, they're eternal beings and that's an important distinction to make.
Speaker 2:And number two, the verse right before gives us an explanation of what it's meant. The verse right before, verse 16, god says the former troubles are forgotten and are hidden from my eyes my eyes. So he's talking about things being forgotten by God. Now in the Old Testament, when the scripture talks about God remembering someone's sin, it means that he's about to act on it and discipline or punish that sin. And when it says that he forgets, then that means he is no longer going to act on it. It's been disciplined and taken care of and now he's not going to remember it anymore. That does not mean that he's lost his omniscience. Every time a pastor preaches on David and Bathsheba, god doesn't say oh my gosh, I didn't know David committed adultery. Right, oh my gosh, I didn't know David committed adultery. It just means he forgave David and didn't have him die. He's not going to be punished further for it. There were a lot of consequences in his day. He's not going to be punished further for it. That's what it's talking about. It's not talking about a lot loss of omniscience there.
Speaker 2:Notice that in the gospels we see that Peter recognized Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration. Revelation 14, 13 tells us that the blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds Follow them. How can their deeds follow them, if they if follow them, if their past hasn't been remembered. And my favorite, 1 Thessalonians 4.17, we will be caught up together and we'll be with the Lord forever. We'll be together, we'll be together.
Speaker 2:Another misconception, just two more. Another misconception is that heaven is all white. Now, I thought that, based on the comics, they always depicted heaven as being white, and movies do that too. Right, yeah, in fact, when the Apostle John was taken to the heavenly realm, what he saw were jewel tones, not all light. Elsewhere in the book of Revelation it speaks of fruit trees and a river and such, and I just don't think that the God who made peacocks and hummingbirds and apple trees and persimmons has forgotten how to be creative. You know that's not going to be. And the final misconception is that people in heaven will gaze up on God nonstop, forever and ever, as their only occupation. That came from the Middle Ages as well. The scripture says instead in Revelation 22.5 that our occupation will be reigning with Christ. That's our occupation. So nine misconceptions, yeah.
Speaker 1:Those are interesting how we, you know, misconstrue scripture and then take things from, I don't know, I can't say legend, but especially about the painters with the halos. They thought, oh, people will have halos just because the painter highlighted the person's face. That's the way it's going to be. You know, in heaven, how we kind of draw things from there and have misconceptions that aren't really true, which is interesting.
Speaker 2:My husband, clay, likes to call it extreme makeover. Metaphysical addition that Satan is behind all these misconceptions to make people think they don't want to go to heaven. It's not attractive, so don't have anything to do with God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, he's done a good job with it. If people think we're going to be singing all the time or just constantly looking at God all the time, but yeah, those were very helpful. So I know how sometimes people have like near-death experiences or like accounts that they've gone to heaven. How do these kind of like align with you know what's in the Bible and how can they sometimes like diverge from like what we know in Christian teaching, Right?
Speaker 2:right, there are a lot of them. Well, one way that they align is with John 8, 51. Jesus said truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. So when Christians have a near-death experience, well, let me just start with Christians. When they have a near-death experience, they often see their souls leaving their physical bodies. They don't feel dead. They can many reports hovering over their bodies and seeing the body lying there, and that fits very well with what Jesus said there he will never see death. What's common between most near-death experiences is a lucid death, where the soul separates and they see the body.
Speaker 2:Most have that an awareness of circumstances. There's one documented case, in fact, where a woman left her body, watched the doctors and then floated out of the hospital and saw a tennis shoe on a windowsill. When the doctors brought her back and she woke up, she described accurately what had been happening in the operating room and told them about the tennis shoe. And they went and looked and there was a tennis shoe there. So that was really interesting. A lot of NDEs have a tunnel experience, a life review. People report seeing mystical beings and they often have a reluctance to return. Some actually go to hell, though, and then they don't have a reluctance to return at all. That's a really scary one. The Case for a Heaven, in fact, by Lee Strobel mentions one such person who went to hell, described it as awful and cried out to the Lord to save him. And he was. He was taken away from the demons and came back to life and became a Christian after that.
Speaker 2:The other way where things often differ is that people tend to see what matches their own religious experience. So Christians may encounter Jesus, they may encounter God. Many encounter lights. A Hindu person may encounter a being they consider to be Krishna. It's important that we don't base our theology on near-death experiences, because in some cases it's later been found out that somebody has lied. That happens sometimes. Sometimes people draw erroneous conclusions from what they see. They may see a bright light and go, oh, that's God, or oh, that's Krishna, or oh, that's whoever. And the other problem is that Satan and his minions, the Bible tells us, often disguise themselves as angels of light. So we don't know who they're really encountering at every time. So we need to turn to the Bible to find out what it says about heaven. We need to turn to the Bible to find out what it says about heaven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's how we can go down that road of misconceptions when we think about it, those near-death experiences. So what would be like some practical implications Does the belief in heaven?
Speaker 2:for Christians and on how we live here on earth, like, how should it shape our priorities and our values? Yes, well, for one thing, jesus said that we should seek rewards in heaven. He said that we should not just be gathering rewards on earth, where moth and rust destroy, but rather we should seek rewards in heaven. And then he lists a whole bunch of things that he says will be greatly rewarded in heaven. And then the rest of the New Testament also has more things, things such as giving to the poor, praying in secret, fasting in secret, loving your enemies. These are all things that God says will be rewarded in heaven. So if that's the case, then we need to re-aim our lives and prioritize those things that will be rewarded in heaven rather than those things that are temporary and that we can't take with us.
Speaker 2:The other big thing that having a robust view of the kingdom of heaven does for us is it helps us when we go through times of loss. All of us are going to face hardships, losses, grief, and if we have a robust view of heaven, then we can be assured that we're going to be. There's a better place coming. All those losses will be back with our loved ones. All those losses will be made up for, we'll receive a reward and we'll be alive for eternity in a much better place and in a body that no longer has failing joints and other issues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that hope for something better to come. Yes something much better, yeah, so what does the Bible say about living forever, like having eternal life? What would it be like?
Speaker 2:Well, actually, this is the funny thing Eternal life comes in three stages. We start out spiritually dead, according to the scripture, and we start out as slaves to sin. That's how we are born and that's how we initially live. But then there are three stages. The first is the born again stage. The second is the intermediate stage, and that occurs when our bodies die but our souls do not. And then the final stage, when our bodies are resurrected.
Speaker 2:Ephesians 2, 1 to 2 says and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. So we start out being dead, spiritually dead, and unable to not sin. In fact, the scripture says that we're slaves to sin and we're not good enough. No one is good enough for heaven. Stage one of eternal life is when we are born again. It begins at spiritual rebirth and it occurs here on this earth. We're made alive, we're born of God, we're adopted by him to be his child and we are finally able to not sin. John 5.24 reads truly, truly I say whoever hears my word and believes him, who sent me, has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. So Jesus has just described this, as those who believe in him, then pass from death to life. Ephesians 2, 4 to 5 tells it like this but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. And then Romans 8, 10,. If Christ is in you, though, the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. So earlier I mentioned that we have a glorious inheritance in saints that Ephesians told us about. Here's the first facet of it we're made spiritually alive Now.
Speaker 2:The second stage of eternal life is called the intermediate state, and that begins at the death of the physical body. The soul, or spirit, leaves the physical body when it dies. Ecclesiastes 12 7 says the dust returns to the earth as it was and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Now where does the spirit go? It goes to the present state of either hell or heaven. Revelation 6-9 describes John writing this. He said I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God. So we actually see the souls of people who, their bodies, died on earth. They were slain, but there they are in heaven and at the present state of heaven, and that's what John sees In 2 Corinthians 5, 6 to 9,. Paul wrote While we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So his self, his true self, is not the physical body. His true self is the soul that inhabits the body. And when the physical body dies, that true self goes to be either in the present state of hell or the present state of heaven, and the present state of heaven he calls being at home with the Lord.
Speaker 2:The best example of the two differences is in a narrative that Jesus told about the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man ate everything he wanted and the poor man, lazarus, was out by the gate begging for scraps, and they both die. And then the narrative picks up here in Luke 16, 22 to 24. It reads the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side, and he called out Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame. Notice they know each other, by the way. The rich man knows who Abraham is and he knows who Lazarus is, and Abraham knows who both of them are.
Speaker 2:Then it continues in verses 25 to 26. But Abraham said Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things and Lazarus, in like manner, bad things. But now he is comforted here and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us. So there are two destinations the rich man went to the place of punishment and Lazarus went to the place of comfort.
Speaker 2:Now in the Bible there's different words used for these things, and it's less clear in the Old Testament than it is in the New Testament. In the Old Testament often the words Sheol and Hades are just used for the realm of debt and there isn't the sense that there's two places, one of comfort, one of punishment. The place of comfort is also called heaven or paradise, and the place of punishment is also called Hades, abaddon, the pit hell, the abyss and the place of torment. So all of those are used. You can see that Hades is used interchangeably, sometimes to mean just the realm of the dead and sometimes to mean the place of punishment. So there we have a really good example of the separation.
Speaker 2:So what do people experience in this intermediate state? They experience the presence of the Lord. They experienced the presence of the Lord. Second Corinthians 5.8 says we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. And they experienced fellowship. Lazarus had fellowship with Abraham and Moses had fellowship with Elijah.
Speaker 2:At this time we also receive another facet of our glorious inheritance, and this is one I think everybody longs for will be perfected, oh yeah, will be perfected. So hebrews 11 names off all the saints from the old testament, or not all of them, but many of them and then it talks about them like this in uh, chapter 12, 22 to 23 uh, the writer, the author, is speaking to those he's writing to and who have become Christians, and he writes to them and says but you have come to the city of the living God and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. Finally, no more temptations in the place of comfort, no more weak flesh that's constantly lusting after all kinds of things of the world, the world we won't even be a part of. We will no longer sin, we will be perfected, and that takes us to the final state. This begins after the general resurrection. There's going to be a judgment. Everybody will come before the Lord. Those who have not received Jesus as paying for their sins will face the judgment. Those who have, thankfully won't face that judgment, but will face a judgment for their works. For the purpose of rewards, god is creating a new heavens and an earth. Then he's going to resurrect the bodies and our souls will rejoin.
Speaker 2:But to these resurrected bodies resurrected bodies that have never sinned or been sinned against, the scripture describes them as glorified. It describes them as powerful, as imperishable. First Corinthians 15 tells us what is sown is perishable, meaning the body that dies has perished, obviously, but what is raised is imperishable. What is sown is or, excuse me, it is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised as a spiritual body.
Speaker 2:The first man, adam, was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man, jesus, is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. So the resurrection occurs. We're reunited with our souls, are reunited with now, a glorious, resurrected body that is imperishable, glorious and powerful, just like jesus's. The scripture also tells us that uh will be resplendent like the stars, the sun, or jesus at the transfiguration will be renowned because our deeds will follow us, will be rewarded. The scripture says that those who have built on the foundation that Christ has laid will receive a reward, will be rewarded. That's just amazing.
Speaker 2:In 1 Peter 1.7, we're told that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So the tested genuineness of your faith means so. You've been going through hardships here on earth and you stuck it out and you were faithful. Because everybody's faith has to be tested Right and when, yeah, and when we go through those hardships and losses with faith. That proves our faith genuine to other people and to the heavenly creatures. God already knows, but it proves it. Faithful to others, but it proves it faithful to others. And then Revelation 22 tells us that in our resurrected bodies we will reign forever and ever with Christ. So that's a pretty amazing inheritance awaiting us.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's interesting about the different stages. How it starts here on earth is how it starts here on earth, and it kind of progresses as we move toward living with God forever. So I think that's pretty interesting how that kind of shapes it out. Yes, and then especially the scriptures that correlate with it also. Yes, yeah, correlate with it also. Yes, yeah, so how does our belief in heaven kind of impact things such as prayer and worship and evangelism?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's another good question. For evangelism, it means that we really want to talk to our loved ones who don't know Christ. We really want to talk to them and give them the chance to hear the gospel. As to prayer, as you may know, my husband has stage four cancer right now and because of that, one of the things that we've been praying is Philippians 4, 4 to 7.
Speaker 2:And that begins with rejoice in the Lord. Always, and again, I say rejoice. And it goes on and talks about how to come to God with your request for Thanksgiving. Well, the reason that we can rejoice in the Lord, even in these really tough times, is because we know heaven awaits and so instead of praying oh God, how could this happen? We can pray, lord. I rejoice in the Lord always. I rejoice in you. Here are all the wonderful things you've done, here are the things you promised to come, and I can be thankful for those things. And so we can pray with peace and assurance. And that's a really, really wonderful way that it changes prayer. And then also, with worship, we can truly magnify the Lord, even when we're in the midst of hard times and suffering, because we know that God intends to give us an inheritance that will make all the sufferings and problems of this world seem slight and momentary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it kind of goes back to that hope that we have you know for better things to come. Yes, all right, yes, all right. So, to wrap up, what encouragement can you offer believers who want to live faithfully for christ?
Speaker 2:number one I would say read the bible and do what it says. There are a lot of hopes in the bible, a lot of hopes for just for while we're on this life here on earth, but also hope for what's coming. So read the Bible and do what it says, because it will change you and bring you to a place where you'll have more hope, more joy and more peace even while you're here. And, of course, if you want help in any of that, I do have Bible studies that will help you to learn more from the Bible and then also live for eternity.
Speaker 2:We have a glorious, glorious inheritance awaiting us. We're going to be made spiritually alive upon being born again. We're going to be perfected, we're going to be resurrected, we're going to be resplendent, we're going to be renowned and rewarded. I'll leave you with this. Second Corinthians 4, 17 to 18 tells us, for this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory, beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, amen to that. I can't add anything else to that. Well, jean, thank you so much for being on the show and giving us a better understanding of heaven. And hopefully it will spur us on to, you know, dive into the word a little bit more, to have a little bit more clarity.
Speaker 2:My pleasure.
Speaker 1:So I hope you enjoyed this conversation that I had with Jean on heaven. Hopefully it gave you some insight into what heaven is like. I know I am going to have to go back and do a little bit more studying on heaven itself and what it's like. I will put Jean's books in the show notes so you can take a look at those in the show notes, so you can take a look at those. But before I sign off, there was an additional question that I had for Jean that I wanted to include that I thought might be helpful to understanding the different stages of eternal life. So here's that question. I did have one question for you, though you know how you were talking about the um, the different stages of heaven in that intermediate stage, yeah, where you say we, when we die, it's that part, what happens, and maybe this I have to study more about, like what happens in the end time. But what happens if we don't die and there's no, we don't go through that intermediate stage, or oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, paul writes about that. He says not everybody will die If, when the Lord comes back, there'll be some people who are still on the earth that haven't died yet. And it says they will instantly be changed and they will be their resurrected bodies.
Speaker 1:Will their current bodies will change into the resurrected bodies instantly, which is pretty amazing Right, so we all won't go through all of those stages of eternal life, right yeah?
Speaker 2:The people that are alive at the time that Jesus comes back. They won't. They'll miss out on the intermediate stage.
Speaker 1:Okay, I was thinking about that when you were going through. I said what about the people who don't die you?
Speaker 2:know Clay wrote a book called Immortal how the Fear of Death Drives Us and what to Do About it, and it's all about why not to be afraid of death, and he's got a lot in there on that, All right.
Speaker 1:So this wraps up our episode. So if this was helpful to you, please share with your family and friends. And until next time, remember God is always good and he's always faithful. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Do me a favor by following the podcast and leaving a review to help spread the word. I look forward to hearing from you.
