Cultivating a Holy Longing

In his book, The Gospel for Real Life, Jerry Bridges writes,

Generally speaking, believers who have the least benefits of this life have the most vigorous hopes of heaven.

He’s right, right? I believe so. After all, if you have nothing here and God promises you a New Heaves and New Earth in which perfect righteousness dwells, you should have easier time focusing on the future. If all is going well for you here, your relative blessing oftentimes will obscure the perfect blessing that is soon to come.

So what do we do if life is going along quite well? If we are enjoying the benefits of this life in greater measure than many others, must we forgo them in order to long more for heaven?

Lest we think it doesn’t matter whether we long for the life to come, check out Hebrews 9:27-28,

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Did you catch that last part? ‘To save those who are eagerly waiting for him.’ That’s no joke huh? Though salvation is solely through faith in Christ, those who faith will eagerly wait.

And yet, we are so apt to feel quite at home here. Life gets going and we think little of the perfect life to come, where those who believe in Christ will live with Him and enjoy life as it ought to be and a thousand times better.

So back to our question: what do we do if our life here is pretty nice? Here’s two suggestions I have probably mentioned before.

1) Read the Bible and good books until you figure out what Heaven is really like and going to be like. Most of us aren’t as clear about the life to come as we may think we are. Do you think Heaven is singing hymns in the clouds with angels? Well then, you are way off and need to read up. Heaven by Randy Alcorn is a great place to start.

2) Cultivate a holy longing for the life to come by diligently seeking the Lord and asking Him for it. Word and prayer. It’s tough to get too much of these.

There is more that we can do, no doubt, but that is a good place to start. For no matter where we are or what is going on in our lives, we will do well to cultivate a holy longing for Christ and the life to come. Believe it or not, it will enable us to live much better here.