2 John 3, Grace, mercy and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. 
	In our last consideration of heaven, we dealt with the service of worship unto which we are called to partake of heaven. We saw the Hand of God in the new heaven and the new earth that will be in place for all the eternal ages to come. We pick up at this point as we draw our contemplations of heaven to a close this morning.  
	In Jesus Christ, we have been made for eternity. Quote, The prospect of living for ever in a renewed universe answers the frustration we feel over the brevity of earthly existence. For human beings have always felt that, at its longest, life is still too short. There is so much in this world to discover, such a variety of experiences to enjoy, yet so little time available. How many places there are which we will never visit, books we will never read, great paintings at which we will never look, how much music we will never hear! It is tantalizing to see such wealth slipping away from us with every tick of the clock.
	How little we know about even our close friends! What untapped reservoirs they are of character and insight! But it would take so long to learn all that we could about them. And what of the millions we have never met – their personalities and their stories? We would be enriched beyond measure by their acquaintance. But we never will be – not on this earth. End quote.
	Then, as well consider the fact that we don’t even know all that we are able to do. We have vast areas of talent which we have not yet been able to develop. There is so much in our own lives which has not yet been revealed in terms of the completeness of who we are in Jesus Christ. We are continually discovering more and more of the person that we will become in the eternal ages through the manifest grace of God. The key point to emphasize is that we will be fully to God’s glory in our entirety, and not to our own glory. But, in truth, we don’t know ourselves in the heart of God, yet.
	We must admit, as much and as earnestly as we pray and study the Bible and worship God, we are still novices in our spiritual life. There is so much more that we need to learn to fully and honorably worship God. We are barely in the shallows of our spiritual life, learning the basic elements of the truth of Jesus Christ. 
We join our hearts with that of the Apostle Paul in his lament at the end of his days as recorded in Phil 3:7-14. After many, many years of service unto God, we hear him declare, But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 
	There is still so much ahead of us in regard to learning all that God has done through the death and resurrection of His Only Beloved Son. There is so very much more in store for us in terms of developing our relationship with God in Christ. The vast array of the riches of His heart of love has not even been discovered as we are at but the shore of His ocean of love and mercy and grace. The mere introduction that we have received through the guidance and the working of the Holy Spirit has but whetted our appetites to savor the wealth of comprehension that awaits our hearts and minds in heaven. We look forward to this, yet at the same time we are upset with the seemingly little bit that we are able to understand in our lives today.
Quote, We want to be better people, kinder and more unselfish, but we wrestle with damaged personalities and are disfigured by the scars of the past. Circumstances have stunted our development. Opportunities afforded to others have never come our way. There is so little time for it all!
	Do you feel these frustrations? Do you not hunger ravenously for more and more of life? Does your heart ache at the too swift passage of the years? Is there not a nagging sense of unfulfilment, no matter how happy you may be? Such beings as we are – in such a world – with so little possible!
	Praise God for heaven! For every good longing within us is an intimation of immortality, an echo of eternity in our souls, a pointer to everlasting life. We were not created for seventy short years, ‘not born for death’, in the poet’s words. Our Creator did not design beings of such complexity and capacity for a mere handful of decades. ‘He has put eternity in their hearts’ (Eccles. 3:11) and we have not been redeemed to be frustrated. ‘Life here is too short, too circumscribed, to be the end for man’s marvelous divinely given endowments and aspirations. He scarcely more than gets his preparations made for full and intelligent living until his time comes to leave.’ End quote
	God’s design and plan is that we will have all of eternity in which to blossom and to grow and to develop to the full potential that He has instilled into us. Consider the example of Jesus as a boy. He was perfect and still it is recorded in Luke 2:52, And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. We will find the complete satisfaction to our heart’s desires in heaven. It will be an eternity of the accomplishment of all that God has instilled into our hearts and minds. We will flourish in manners heretofore unknown to us.
	Quote, The longings and aspirations of unbelievers will remain unfulfilled for ever, a wasted mockery. But God will bring out in his children all that he has implanted in us, in a universe of unlimited richness and beauty.
	Best of all, it will never end. This life is overshadowed by an awareness that nothing lasts, but that shadow will be lifted in heaven. Richard Baxter called eternity ‘the crown of crowns’. At moments of utter happiness, a voice inside us whispers, ‘I want this to go on for ever.’ In heaven it will! End quote.
	This brings us to the end of our discussion of heaven and hell. We have spent almost a year in consideration of what will take place after death on this earth. We are very thankful to Dr. Edward Donnelly for the study that we have used as the framework for our examination of God’s Word together. 
We are also very, very thankful for the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we have delved into the Word by His grace, direction, and understanding. This has been a challenging journey into that which is at the very heart of God in terms of His plan and purpose in the creation of heaven and hell. It has by no means been comprehensive in the fact that our human mind is utterly incapable of fully understanding all that God has done. But, Lord willing, we have seen, to a greater extent, some of what is before us as Christians in eternity. 
	This is also a challenging time for us, in the aftermath of this consideration. Hopefully these studies have stirred up a greater recognition of what is involved in our lives today on this earth. 
	There is very much that we need to take to heart in our earthly preparation for heaven. What we do on this earth will have its effect in the eternal ages to come. We have some huge responsibilities that we need to take to heart. One is for the unsaved. We should have the heart instilled into us as recorded in 1 Tim 2:3+4. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 
Our lives are to be lived in such a manner as to be winsome to all. As the Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 9:19-23, For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more. And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law, though not being myself under the Law, that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some. And I do all things for the sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow partaker of it. 
	As well, we need to take to heart the fact, as we have emphasized over and over again, that we are created for God’s glory. Just as heaven and hell were created for God’s glory, so too are we. Therefore we need to learn to obey the Holy Spirit in all His dealings in our lives that we ever more bring honor and glory to Our God and Savior, for His sake Alone. We should be desirous to have the focal point of our entire lives set firmly and deeply in Him, setting aside forever those elements of this age which would serve to take away from His glory.
	 We should be seeing everything that we undergo on this earth in the light of heaven. We end with our last quote from Dr. Donnelly. Life can be hard and no fine words will change that. But ‘the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us’ (Rom. 8:18). Heaven is coming quickly and ‘our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory’ (2 Cor. 4:17). The greater our troubles now, the greater our glory then. These things will soon pass and we will be with the Lord forever.
	And all of us who are Christ’s should live more consistently in the light of heaven. We should be more heavenly minded, for our citizenship is there (Phil. 3:20). This doctrine urges us to stop chasing after the little trinkets of this life and to lay up treasures in the world to come. We must not deny by our lives what we profess with our lips. End quote. 
	We should so focus on God’s glory to be revealed in heaven in these lives, that many, many others will be brought to heaven with us. Thus these lives will be to the complete glory of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, through Christ Jesus, Our Lord and Savior. So be it!
Grace, mercy and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. Amen.