CHAPTER IV

GOD'S PLAN AND PROMISES FOR OUR FUTURE

Of all God's plans and promises, this is the one that interests most people. What is God's plan for our future?

Here it is: God plans to take home to heaven all who have trusted Jesus Christ as Savior, so they can joyfully live with Him forever.

It's a simple plan that is based on God's plan for our salvation mentioned earlier. That is, if we accept God's plan for salvation and trust Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour, we have a ticket to heaven. God has big plans for our future.

Let's take a closer look. God plans to take home to heaven all who have trusted Jesus Christ as Saviour, so they can joyfully live with Him forever. What is it about this plan that brings us so much joy? Why do we long so much for our heavenly home? Here's what the Bible says: God plans heaven as our final home.

Man is a pilgrim by nature. We are wanderers. Nowhere is this more evident than with the people in Scripture. Cain became a fugitive and a vagabond after he killed his brother (Gen. 4:12). Abraham was a desert sheikh who left Ur of the Chaldees and traveled hundreds of miles to the land where God directed him (Gen. 12:1). Jacob migrated to Egypt with his family (Gen. 46:5,6). The Israelites wandered 40 years in the wilderness when they left Egypt (Num. 32:13).

All of this wandering indicates a great desire—a yearning to be home, finally home. On account of this desire, Abraham sought a "city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Heb 11:10).  

We are no different today. For the Christian, there is an evident void in this world. It's as though something is missing, and we don't belong here, like aliens on a different planet.

In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis said, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." How true!

We wander through this sin-wrecked earth, knowing that God plans to take us out of here one day, to take us home to be with Him. God will take us to our permanent residence—heaven, our final home, where we will joyfully live forever.