“We’ve fallen for the devil’s lie. His most basic strategy, the same one he employed with Adam and Eve, is to make us believe that sin brings fulfillment. However, in reality, sin robs us of fulfillment. Sin doesn’t make life interesting; it makes life empty. Sin doesn’t create adventure; it blunts it. Sin doesn’t expand life; it shrinks it. Sin’s emptiness inevitably leads to boredom. When there’s fulfillment, when there’s beauty, when we see God as he truly is—an endless reservoir of fascination—boredom becomes impossible.” ― Randy Alcorn, Heaven

In the truest sense, Christian pilgrims have the best of both worlds. We have joy whenever this world reminds us of the next, and we take solace whenever it does not.  - C. S. Lewis

“For the Christian, death is not the end of adventure but a doorway from a world where dreams and adventures shrink, to a world where dreams and adventures forever expand.” 
― Randy Alcorn, Heaven

Tom Delaney was a talented Jazz musician and songwriter. In 1948, Delaney penned the phrase, “Ev’rybody wants to go to Heaven; but nobody wants to die!” For many people, inside the church and outside the church, this is how they feel about death. Death is not something any of us look forward to, but for those who have faith in Christ, death is only the final moment of suffering in which we enter the glory of Heaven. 

Tomorrow we begin a new sermon series, a three-week Biblical study of Heaven.  There are lots of movies and books that say creative and wild things about Heaven, but what does the Bible say?  Here’s some of Paul’s encouragement to us about keeping our hearts focused on things above: