Stephen Witmer:
All Christians go to heaven. But some leap and stride into paradise from their deathbeds — peaceful, confident, and happy. Others limp and shuffle — clinging, denying, and frightened. Why the difference?
In my experience, it’s what they know (or don’t know) about what’s coming next. Jesus has guaranteed his people a glorious future. But have they fully grasped what he has fully secured? Those who haven’t will likely die clinging to a broken present rather than a perfect future. An unsavored heaven may seem second-best even to ragged breathing in a hospital bed. Dying well requires a passion for the life of heaven.
And the same is true for living well. A tasted, treasured, future new creation is a God-ordained means of God-pleasing living. By breeding in God’s people a restless patience, love for God’s future saves us from the pitfalls of settling or seizing.
Far too many Christians live gray lives. Beaten down by disappointments, missed opportunities, or broken dreams, they’ve retreated into low-grade dissatisfaction, sustaining themselves with the crumbs of small pleasures. They’ve settled for a future the size of this coming weekend, or a television screen, or more Twitter followers. Others, rejecting the way of settling, have seized all they can get in this life, restlessly dialing up the color of their lives. Seizing what they shouldn’t have (a car they can’t afford, a wife not theirs), they walk away from Jesus and the beautiful future he offers.