Hearing a heated squabble between her two young granddaughters, aged three and five, my friend removed the object of their dispute – her coveted cell phone. But from another room, she could hear their ongoing nipping, each blaming the other for what had happened.
Suddenly the five year old burst into the room, wailing. “Grandma! Sister told me to (sniffle, sniffle)... told me to go to (sniff)... go to HEAVEN, and I don’t even know WHERE Heaven is!”
My friend’s grandchild asked what many wonder. If she’d been able to convince her grandmother to let her use the cell phone again, and if she had known about Siri, the encyclopedic reference tool that responds to spoken questions on many cell phones, they could have asked. “How do I get to Heaven?”
For fun, I tried that. “Siri,” I spoke into my phone, “tell me how to get to Heaven.” In a classy British accent, Siri replied: “All right. Here’s what I got.” Displayed on the screen, I read, “People who have exhibited certain virtues in life enter heaven in their afterlives.”
I tried again. This time, Siri directed me to the Led Zeppelin song, released in 1971, “Stairway to Heaven.”
Thankfully, the Bible is the only authoritative source of information on Heaven. It refers to it as a real physical place. A place with rooms and homes, gardens and lands and meaningful, fulfilling work. A place where those who love and obey him will worship God together and enjoy each other forever. A place without sin or pain, rejection or loneliness. A place of eternal joy beyond comprehension: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9)
Heaven, the Bible explains, is where Jesus ascended to following his resurrection from the dead. And from where he will one day return to bring believers who have died and believers still living – back with him.
Though the Bible provides no physical map to Heaven, God’s Son lays out a clear spiritual path. In the book of Matthew alone, Jesus is quoted as mentioning Heaven more than seventy times. In John 14, he talks about going there to prepare it for his followers. After giving a brief description of the place he calls his “Father’s house,” one of his disciples asked, “How can we know the way?”
“I am the way, the truth and the life,” he answered. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Another disciple asked for more information. “Show us the Father,” he said. In a confirmation of their Oneness, Jesus responded (somewhat tiredly, I’m sure), “What? I’ve been with you for such a long time, and you still don’t get it? Anyone who has seen me, has seen the Father.” (My paraphrase.)
Neither Siri nor Led Zeppelin explain how to get to heaven. “The only GPS that can give you flawless direction,” noted evangelist Billy Graham explains, “is the Gospel Plan of Salvation.”
Choose the map in your Bible to arrive at destination Heaven.
