Shouldn’t Church Prepare Us For Heaven?

Heaven’s center-stage will not be filled with orators. The centerpiece and attraction of our Heaven-experience will not be a star-studded lineup of the spiritual voices and icons of the ages. ‘…Tomorrow afternoon will feature D.L.Moody, followed by Billy Graham, 45 min. w/ James the Apostle, then Charles Spurgeon, Abraham and Charles Finney.’ Wow, what a selection! …Can’t wait!

No! For many, this is their perspective of church — a showcase for eloquence, simply a platform for articulate, persuasive and motivating lecture. …Or at the very least, an arena for distributing and propagating beneficial information.

Yet, heaven won’t be anything like this. Heaven’s heartbeat, the atmosphere at its core, will be thunderously different! Its heartbeat and the joy of heaven will be all about “giving” not “receiving”!

God’s primary intent for the church is not as a mechanism to introduce us to compelling speech and convincing arguments … simply an instrument to keep parishioners better informed about God and kingdom principles. His foremost desire is as an incubator to prepare us for the lifestyle of heaven—a giving, not receiving perspective.

I’m reasonably sure heaven will include an education process (orientation) for every participant and for many this will require rapid and significant growth. We will all suddenly have “doctrinal revelation” & perfect clarification (illumination) of things we’ve been so doctrinally sure of. Eph.2:7 speaks of us being the example of His grace, “that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Doubtlessly, our spiritual growth process begins here. However as with heaven, we must learn to see church from a giving not just receiving perspective—from a passion to worship, not merely to be better informed (equipped). Indeed, it is better to give than to receive and this is not money-talk; it’s worshiper-talk. We were born to be givers! Selah.\o/