Heaven is the hope of every faithful Christian. We sing about it, we long for it, and we bury those we love looking toward it. Yet many people are not sure what it is, where it is, or who will be there. The Bible does not answer every question we might ask, but it tells us what we need to know. Heaven is the dwelling place of God. Christ has gone there to prepare a place for His people. And those who are faithful will be carried there to be with Him forever. Let the Scriptures say it themselves.
Heaven Is the Dwelling Place of God
Heaven is first of all where God is. Jesus taught us to pray, "Our Father which art in heaven" (Matthew 6:9). The Lord said through Isaiah, "The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool" (Isaiah 66:1). Heaven is the throne. The earth is only the footstool. The two are not the same place, and they are not equal.
Solomon understood this when he built the temple. He prayed, "behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee" (1 Kings 8:27). God is greater than the heavens, and it is from there that He rules. When Christ finished His work, He did not stay here. He was taken up, and the angels said, "this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven" (Acts 1:11). He entered "into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us" (Hebrews 9:24). Heaven is a real place, distinct from this earth, and that is where God and Christ are.
Christ Has Gone to Prepare It for the Faithful
Heaven is not only where God is. It is the place Christ has gone to prepare for His people. On the night before He died He told His apostles, "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also" (John 14:2-3). Read that last line slowly. He does not say He will come down and stay with us here. He says He will receive us to Himself, so that we may be where He is. He is in heaven. That is where the faithful go.
Paul spoke the same way about his own death. He was "willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8), and he had "a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better" (Philippians 1:23). When the Lord returns, the dead in Christ rise, and the living are caught up "to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:17). The hope is always the same. It is to be with the Lord, where He is.
That is why Peter says our inheritance is "reserved in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:4), why Paul says our home is "a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Corinthians 5:1), and why he says "our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour" (Philippians 3:20). The treasure, the inheritance, the home, and the hope are all laid up in one place, and that place is not here.
This World Is Not Our Home
Because heaven is our hope, this world is not our home. It is a good place to do the Lord's work, but it is passing, and we were not meant to settle into it as though it would last. Jesus said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35). John wrote, "And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever" (1 John 2:17). Peter said the day would come when "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise... the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up" (2 Peter 3:10; see also Hebrews 1:11-12). This present creation is not the everlasting home of the saved.
The Bible does promise "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter 3:13), but the new comes only after the old has passed away (Revelation 21:1). The hope is not a remade version of this planet. It is the day when "the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them" (Revelation 21:3), and, as Paul said, our lasting home is in the heavens (2 Corinthians 5:1). Our hope is to be with God where He is.
What Scripture Says Heaven Is Like
What kind of place is it? The Bible does not satisfy every curiosity, but it tells us enough. There will be no more death. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away" (Revelation 21:4). There will be no night and no need of the sun, "for the Lord God giveth them light" (Revelation 22:5). There remains "a rest to the people of God" (Hebrews 4:9). The pure in heart will see God Himself (Matthew 5:8; Revelation 22:4). And it is forever (Matthew 25:46).
It is a better place than this one, not a cleaned-up copy of it. Every sorrow that belongs to this life is gone, because the life that produced those sorrows is gone. That is the comfort heaven offers, and it is a comfort this world cannot give.
Who Will Be There
Heaven is real, but it is not for everyone without exception. It is for the holy. John wrote that "there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth" (Revelation 21:27), and again, "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city" (Revelation 22:14). The writer of Hebrews said to follow "holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14).
So the question is not only what heaven is, but whether you are fit to enter it. Have you obeyed the gospel? Are you living a holy life? Heaven is promised to those who are the Lord's and who walk with Him, and it is closed to those who will not. That is not harsh. It is honest, and it is the only warning worth giving about a door that will one day shut.
Set Your Hope Above
So set your hope in the right place. The earth under your feet is passing, and it was never meant to be your lasting home. Christ has gone to prepare a place in His Father's house, and He will come again to receive His people to Himself. Live as a citizen of heaven, keep yourself holy, and be ready to leave this world when He calls. Nothing here can compare to what He has prepared there.