Guest Post: On Heaven and Whether You Really Want to Go

Guest Post by O.M. Harbor

Before you read the rest of this, go read Revelation 21:1-22:5. That chapter gives us the most physical description of what heaven will look like. And if I’m allowed to speculate, I suspect that it’s a pretty poor description compared to actually seeing it. Just a guess, though.

I would imagine that if I asked the question, “Do you want to go to heaven?” most people would answer in the affirmative. I won’t say all, because I don’t know that for sure and some people are just crazy. I would also imagine that after having read the above passage, if I followed that up with, “Why?” I would get a variety of answers from those that want to go. Most would give answers about wanting to spend eternity in such a beautiful paradise, or say that in heaven they would always be happy, or that they want to see loved ones again. Others might say that they have a ton of questions to ask God or maybe they just want to see Him. I’m sure there are more, but from what I’ve heard from talking to people those seem to be pretty stock answers. Personally, I think that both of those questions and answer are important to a Christian’s faith and motivation to follow God. But I’ll get back to that later.

Revelation 4 gives us a look at the throne room of heaven, with verses 1-7 detailing what it looks like. But I have to say that for me, verses 8-11 are what really stand out. Go read that chapter really quick. When the four living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to God, the 24 elders throw down their crowns before the throne and worship God. Except that the four living creatures give glory to God day and night without rest. So the elders are constantly worshiping.

Revelation 5:8-14, go read that too. It’s the same thing. Living creatures and elders worshiping and praising God. Revelation 7:11-12, 11:16-18, and 19:4 more of the same thing. Revelation 14:6-7, 15:3-4, 16:7, and 19:1-6, more praise of God.

I couldn’t tell you everything that will go on in heaven, but based on those verses there will be a lot of worship to God. And that makes complete sense to me. Worship to God is central to being a Christian. We sing songs and pray prayers of praise and thanksgiving to God. We set aside a day of the week just to worship Him. We do this because He commanded us to. Obedience to God is worship too. It shows our commitment and respect and devotion to the One we believe to be our Creator. Worship is a display of our faith in God. So it is only fitting that in heaven we will be doing a lot of worshiping.

If you asked me why I want to go to heaven, then my answer is to worship God. There are other things that I hope I can do in heaven, but compared to the worship of God, none of those things are important. If you want to go to heaven and have a different answer than that or perhaps yours is listed above, I don’t know if you’re wrong or not. But I would urge you to reconsider the main reason you want to go to heaven. The point is that you better be prepared to spend a good part of eternity bowing down before God and casting your crown at His feet while humbly shouting glory and honor to His name and giving thanks to Him for what He’s done and all that He is.

And are you preparing now to do that for eternity? Are you just showing up on Sunday and clocking in your hour or two of worship? Are you worshiping God Monday through Saturday as well? The answers to those are between you and God, because I can’t tell if you are or not and I don’t decide if you’re truly worshiping God. God can tell and He decides. But I will tell you that if you don’t enjoy it while you’re here on earth, then you’re probably not going to enjoy heaven a whole lot. The question is still the same, just with a twist now. If you don’t like to worship God here on earth, do you really want to go to heaven?

If you'd like to write a guest post for On Pop Theology you can contact Ben at benjamin.howard [at] gmail.com or find him on Twitter @BenHoward87.