heaven

Caylee Dugger, a church youth director, died in a three-vehicle wreck last Thursday while the other drivers survived, according to Oklahoma Highway Patrol. She was 30 at the time of her death.

When Jesus left this earth, He promised that He would return one day and take us to live with Him in His heavenly Kingdom. We are living now in the Church Age, and regardless of what you believe about specific eschatology of the end times, all Christians can agree that Christ is coming back and we are called to be ready and walking the straight and narrow path so that He may tell us "well done, good and faithful, servant" on that glorious day when we meet Him face to face.

Here are eight things you can do as you seek to cultivate a life centered on Christ, eagerly awaiting His return.

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Early in my Christian experience, I thought I needed to serve God to earn or justify his love for me. Then I learned that because “God is love” (1 John 4:8), he cannot love me any more than he already does. As a result, I learned to serve him out of gratitude for his amazing grace. Now I realize there is a still deeper reason to love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30): because he is worthy of such love.

When Christians make this world our home, we become more like the world than the world becomes like us. By contrast, if every Christian took seriously our status as “travelers on a journey,” I am convinced that our world could not remain the same.

Christian author Lee Strobel told Christian Headlines that his late friend, evangelist Luis Palau, spoke openly and eagerly about his anticipation of Heaven and what he looked forward to seeing there at the end of his life.

“Heaven is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark.” –Stephen Hawking

I’m afraid of the dark.

If we’re talking about the endless kind of darkness that offers no light anywhere, no hope ever, and nothing but nothingness, who among us would not panic at the thought of that?

I expect people like Mr. Hawking simply find the idea of Heaven too good to be true, and thus conclude that it must be a product of man’s delusional yearning for “pie in the sky by and by.”

And yet, there are solid reasons for reasonable people to believe in the concept of a Heavenly home after this earthly life. Here are some that mean a lot to me. By no means is this list exhaustive. It’s simply my thinking on the subject.

The God who made us created us with a longing for Himself and a satisfaction in nothing less.

When we get to Heaven, we will finally be satisfied, but not until then. “I shall be satisfied with Thy likeness when I awake” (Psalm 17:15).

“I go to prepare a place for you,” said our Lord. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:3).

If it were not so, I would have told you.

Jesus said that. I believe Him.

I choose to believe.

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Apologist and author Lee Strobel once was a skeptic of near-death experiences. No more. The author of such bestsellers as The Case for Christ, Strobel said he changed his mind on the validity of near-death experiences due to their ability – at least in some cases – to be corroborated. He shares his findings of such experiences in an upcoming movie, The Case for Heaven, which is in theaters April 4-6. It is based on a book that was released last fall, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death.

According to a new survey by Lifeway Research, a majority of Americans believe it is very important to know for certain if they will go to Heaven when they die.

Best-selling Christian author and investigative journalist Lee Strobel is releasing a new documentary film based on his latest book, The Case for Heaven.

An Arizona woman claims to have gone to heaven and met Jesus Christ face to face after suffering a near-death experience.