Monday, November 3, 2025

             Heaven is real.  And many of us have family members and friends who are with the Lord today.  Through their faith in the sufficiency of Jesus’ death and resurrection for their sins, these beloved men and women have been gathered before the Lord.  We do not know all the details about heaven—what it looks like, what is happening, how many redeemed believers are there—but we do know a little about heaven.  Revelation 4:8 tells us, “Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.’”  Holy, holy, holy is the exclamation of heaven’s chorus.  The Lord God is beyond comparison and without equal. Heaven is a place of perpetual praise and thanksgiving offered to our worthy Savior and Lord.  Why?  Because worthy is the lamb who was slain—Jesus who gave His life and blood for our sins and forgiveness.
            With Christ, there is a future worth facing and living.  Without Christ, the future is unthinkably bleak and grim.  So, heaven is giving everlasting praise to the One who made this glorious eternity possible.  As John wrote in Revelation 5:12, “In a loud voice they were saying: ‘Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!’”  There are three points of identification about Jesus in this verse.  First, He is worthy—worthy to receive the greatest, longest and deepest of praise.  He is worthy of all that we can bring to Him.  We bring our daily and earthly worship to Him in anticipation of the day that we will worship and praise Him face to face.  Second, He is the Lamb of God.  He is the sacrifice who is without blemish or stain of sin.  No one else could have died for the sins of the world and died in the place of a rebellious humanity.  He was the lamb led to the slaughter.  As Isaiah put it, “by His stripes we are healed.”  Third, He was slain.  He gave His life and took the cross we should have taken.  He was the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world.  His blood is the forever cleanser of sin, rebellion and defiance.
            In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray that the Lord’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.  We know that worship is certainly part of heaven.  And we can make certain that worship is part of our lives each day here on earth—collectively with other believers on Sundays and individually during the week.  Worshiping the Lord for His worthiness is one way that we grow in our faith and walk with the Lord.  With the activity of heaven as our standard and model, we can live in anticipation of eternity by living thankfully and with praise for our worthy Lamb who was slain.  David Jeremiah has written, “If we have heaven clearly in our minds, then our only other concern is for those we love and those who have yet to hear of God’s eternal plan.”  There is a popular saying today that our Christian mission is to make heaven crowded.  Indeed, it is.  A life of praise and thankfulness is a compelling argument and witness for the Lord for unbelievers to see and hear. 
            Bill Wallace was a medical doctor, a surgeon, who served as a Baptist missionary in China during World War 2 and the early days of the Communist revolution.  He would be tortured brutally and killed by the Communists under Mao-Tse Tung.  He was accused of being a spy for the West and a subversive of the Communist government.  None of that was true.  He was a gifted and called man who used His training and skills as a doctor to serve Christ and the impoverished people of China who were traumatized by years of Japanese aggression and Communist brutality.  One of the people led to faith in Jesus Christ by Bill Wallace had this to say about Him, “He actually lived before us the life of Christ.”  May the same be said of us.  Have a great Monday!  Remember you can share our worship anytime at YouTube.com/FirstBaptistKannapolis.