Heaven...

[Denise]

I have a lot of questions I’ve stored up for the right people if I ever came upon them. I think this family is right people.
So is heaven and paradise ( Luke 23:43) the same place?
Also I think being a Christian is about what happens after you die ( does that sound alright?). So what do you guys think we do in heaven? Anyone feel free to answer.

[Ed Hurst]

"Paradise" is based on a Persian word. Jesus used it on the Cross to refer to His Father's home, promising the penitent man he would join Him there. What would you call it? The word "heaven" simply shows a translation of the Hebrew habit of referring to the sky as the abode of God. There are only symbols; you cannot describe any experience in the Spirit Realm.

Being a Christian is a bit more than what happens after you die. That's the goal, and if we follow Christ long enough, we'll find His footprints leading us there. But it's a lot of living like you belong there while you are here.

Anyone else?

[forrealone]

Being here on Earth should be a journey with the "afterlife" as our destination.  Being a Christian, in my humble opinion, means living this life following, as Ed put it, in the footsteps of and the examples shown in the life of Jesus.  

After I fall asleep in the Lord, I believe when next I open my eyes, I will be in Jesus' presence (whatever that means) when He returns.  1 Thess 4:13-18.  Once He has gathered all of His children, a time will come when the Earth will be made new.  Isaiah 65:7   Rev 21:1

Is Heaven an actual place or is it what is "not" of this world?  I don't know.  I DO know that God will be with us and we with Him.  Rev 21:3

So, I live to be with Him.  Maybe that is what a Christian is?

[Denise]

The Spirit Realm.
I grasp that to varying degrees in my heart.
The flesh and bone body of Jesus after His resurrection and that body being carried up into heaven. He said, “ Behold My hands and My feet, it is I Myself, handle Me, and see; for the spirit hath not flesh and bones , as you see Me have.” ( Luke 24)
Then the book of Revelation presents that Hebraic imagery , the spirit realm. Jesus does not seem like flesh and bone there. 
I am a youngish in my spiritual awakening and I think of others who will come along and since heaven is our home it would be nice if we could answer more questions about it and think on it more. Will we have work there? Will we have touch? It seems the sense of hearing is very good based on John’s experience in the Revelation.
I had a dream in 2019. I wrote it down but never told anyone about it. I was sitting in a field of wildflowers surrounded by long distances of rolling hills of wildflowers. The light was bright not harsh but there was no sun. The sky was clear. I sat under a nice shade tree. It was incredibly quiet I liked it. There was a very gentle breeze that was refreshing almost a scent but not. I became aware of someone beside me. It was a lady I knew from around 1996 and I had thought she was a serious Christian. At the time of the dream I did not know she had passed away. I recognized her sort of. She was almost the same but maybe younger. She never spoke but through our minds we communicated sort of, but not like talking we just understood each other. I got the understanding to continue to sit together enjoying the moment and where we were. She was peaceful and full of joy when I looked at her. We both looked off into the distance. She stood up and I understood to stand  along with her. I knew we were about to walk. We started off and ahead of us between 2 small hills was a blackIsh body of water or a lake. She made me to understand that she and I were going to walk on that water and pull people out. Then I woke up.
I have thought on it and perhaps it was a place in heaven. Perhaps an enemy hijacked my dream and produced some lying images. 
I was not left with the feeling of fear or desire for more of the dream, just a peaceful wonder.
I share all that to say I have a lot of thoughts  about our heart-led home.

[Ed Hurst]

I cleaned up your post for you Denise, since I have moderator privileges.

The Spirit Realm is such a radically different place, a different kind of place. Your dream narrative is about as accurate as anything I've seen. There will always be a very personal element in dreams and visions, but at the same time, it reveals something about the substance of what it will be like. There will be options we don't have now, so having a solid body or not will depend on the context.

Work? That seems like missing the point. All the things that motivate us now will be changed; we won't want the same things. The constraints of time and space will be gone, so being where you like and when you like is a matter of choice. We simply cannot imagine that. You'll have things to do, but it won't be the same as here.

Of course, my own speculation will be colored by the huge amount of Science Fiction I read growing up.

[IainH]

All I can do is relate to y'all where I'm at, at this point in my journey. 

My prime directive is to Glorify Jesus Christ right now. 

I tend to think in terms of the two realms, the Heavenly and the Earthly rather than heaven as a destination. Ed has written extensively on the topic and, it's a fundamental to understanding Scripture that doesn't get much attention except in mechanistic terms. So, Heaven is not a goal for me, in and of itself rather I press toward the mark for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus in the hope of hearing well done, good and faithful servant. 

"Did you see that? He just quoted Scripture without quotation marks and references"
"Neither did the Apostles, they went "Scripture says.." and bundled them together. It's how it works ya know"
"You're supposed to learn by rote and carry your Bible verse to situation card at all times. How can you be a Christian if you don't follow the recipe?"
"Uh...I don't know...mebbe, fear God, shun evil...love God with all my heart, soul and strength...treat people right and maintain the peace of God within the tribe?"
"You're a...Heretic!"
thought bubble [ sooey! You ain't gettin' none of my pearls]

[Ed Hurst]

I don't need no recipe card; I got the Chef in my soul.

[jaybreak]

I've thought about this answer a lot, since I was very young. Any answer we come up with here won't work, since our surroundings and ourselves will be very different, but one thing to mull over is that we'll be as we are now, but in a much more "pronounced" state. We will still be able to do the things we do here that appear to be unique to our existence: perceive, conceive, rationalize, symbolize, hypothesize, but since we won't be corrupted with fallen bodies, we'll be able to do it "perfectly" (whatever that could mean).

As far as what the actual place will be like, I'm not sure. We might be too focused on taking in God's glory to really care, but that's putting it too simply, perhaps. Heaven as an actual place where we could reside is a creation, but we could think of it as a perfect creation, though different in some ways from what Eden was, and obviously much different than what we ended up with here now. What if the "place" or substance of heaven and heavenly things is so imbued with God's glory that we are unable to separate the two? As in, if heaven is a place and there are creations in heaven (like us, angels, who knows what else), they'd have so much of the identity of the Lord in them that we'd perceive it as all mirrors of God, reflecting Him back at us in their singular way?

[Benjamin]

I have not thought a lot about it before. I have read some books by or about people who claim to have had a near death experience, and some of those are interesting, but I tend to discount them if they claim that the angel or Jesus explained or claimed some doctrine as truth/fact that I understand scripture to explain to be different.

I came across an author a few years back by the name of Randy Alcorn. I think he has a non-fiction book entitled Heaven, and at least four fiction books (listed below) that incorporate scenes/narrative taking place in heaven.  I found them to be thought provoking and you may find them interesting/beneficial.

The fiction titles I've read include:
 
     Safely Home (contrasting Western/Traditional Christianity against the underground church in China)

     Deadline (Newspaper Columnist/Opinion writer struggles with his opinions on feminism vs. conservative christianity. Lots of heavenly dialogue between a guardian angel and a friend of the reporter who died. Also some thoughts of others who died and did not go to heaven)

     Dominion (Another newspaper reporter struggles with gang violence and rascism that affect his family)

     Deception (A police detective struggles with alcoholism and other stuff. Written a little like a "stereotypical" detective novel. I think I laughed the most while reading this one, out of the four.)

The latter three titles are a sort of trilogy, with recurring characters and a continuous timeline. Each of them include parts of the story on earth, and parts of the story in heaven. I've found them to be thought provoking, enjoyable, and generally not against how I understand things to work with God.  They have definitely informed or impacted how I think of heaven and what it will be like.

If anyone reads these and does find content they think doesn't agree with scripture as they understand it, I'd be happy to hear what you've found. I don't want to blindly accept what this guy wrote if it's incorrect.

[jaybreak]

I've never heard of Alcorn, but the trilogy sounds interesting. When you say the Deception book made you laugh the most, I assume you mean that positively, and not in derision?

Anything we can really claim about the afterlife is really a personal assertion. Scripture doesn't go into detail about it because what the afterlife is like is too incomprehensible to really say for sure, aside from what we receive from the Lord personally. If there were more detail He wanted all of humanity to know, I think He would've included it somehow in scripture.