Getting Ready for Heaven

There are lessons we learn in the storms of life that we don’t learn anywhere else. When Paul and Barnabas visited the believers in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia, the Bible tells us they strengthened them and encouraged them "to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22).

This isn’t a verse you would usually see hanging on someone’s wall, is it? It is almost as bad as "everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution" (2 Timothy 3:12). There are some promises we would rather forget, but they are just as true as Romans 8:28, which promises that "God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them" and Jeremiah 29:11, where the Lord says, "For I know the plans I have for you. . . . They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."

No one is exempt from experiencing the storms of life. God is doing a work. And that is what we have to understand: God is at work. He will not waste our pain. He will produce something in our lives that we need. He is looking for a desired result.

As 2 Corinthians 4:17 reminds us, "Our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!"

God will take the things we are going through and use them for His glory in time. God’s endgame, if you will, His primary purpose for us, is to make us more like Jesus. He is getting us ready for Heaven.