Heaven

"Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in; aim at earth and you will get neither".
This is a quote we discussed at the beginning of our small group study on Heaven. Held on Monday evenings at my home, we have sometimes struggled with the heavy theology in the book "Heaven" by Randy Alcorn. The book often reads like a textbook; so it is a blessing that there is a study guide and a DVD that accompany it.
Our group is comprised of friends that have been meeting together for 3 or 4 years, plus a woman new to our community. We all came into this study with some preconceived notions about our eternal home that have been changed and reformed through looking at what the Word of God really has to say about the New Heaven and New Earth.
Some of the concepts and ideas are not entirely new, yet they have been fleshed out and confirmed more clearly through this study. Here are a few highlights we've covered so far:
In Heaven, we will have memories from earth. This is shown by the martyrs in Revelations 6 who remember that they were murdered, and wonder how long until there is retribution for their murders.
In Heaven, we will have unity, a shared vision, one voice.
In Heaven, people desire learning and pursue it.
Just as our bodies decay and need resurrected, our earth is decaying and needs resurrected....thus God's perfect plan of a new Earth.
All the beauty we enjoy on this present earth will be present in the New Earth, only so much better and more beautiful than we can imagine.
In Heaven, we will have fully physical bodies in a fully physical place.

These are just a few of the tidbits we have explored in our study. It has made us excited for where we are headed for our eternal reward.