Who Will Be In Heaven?

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
–Matthew 7:21

Maps can be very useful when you are traveling in unfamiliar territory. I discovered that truth the hard way a number of years ago.

A pastor friend of mine in Canada asked me to come to his church to speak at a banquet. So I got on the plane one Friday morning in Dallas and traveled to Winnipeg, Manitoba. I arrived about 4:00 in the afternoon, retrieved my luggage, walked outside the terminal, and waited for the pastor to pick me up. I waited, and I waited, and I waited. No pastor. So I went back into the terminal to call him. I retrieved his letter of invitation, and I noticed that the address in the return portion of the letter did not match where I was. I had spoken for him before in Winnipeg, and I had assumed he was still in Winnipeg. Realizing I had a bit of a problem, I went to the airline ticket counter and said, “This letter says I’m supposed to be someplace called Vancouver, British Columbia. Is there a bus I can catch? I need to be there in about 30 minutes.” They laughed and said, “Vancouver is 1,500 miles from here.”

“Oh no!” I said. “What am I going to do?” They said, “This is your lucky day. We have a plane right now that is getting ready to leave for Vancouver. Since you gain two hours going west, if you get on that plane right now, you can make it there in an hour Vancouver’s time. We’ll hold the plane for you.” I ran as quickly as I could down to the gate, gave the agent my boarding pass, and was about to go down the jetway when the agent stopped me and said, “Would you wait just a moment?” I turned around, and he gave me a map of Canada. He said, “Read this. It will help you the next time you come to our country.”

Traveling to the wrong location can be embarrassing, but there is one time in your life you do not want to end up at the wrong destination, and that is the day of your death. The Bible tells us several surprising truths about the eternal home that God is preparing for His people right now. For example, we may be surprised by the fact that we are going to spend eternity not up there someplace but right here on a newly re-created earth. We may be surprised to know that in eternity we are going to do a lot more than float around on a cloud plucking a harp. God is going to give us real, meaningful, and fulfilling work for eternity.

One of the greatest surprises about Heaven is who is going to be in Heaven. When that day comes, we are going to be surprised to find that many of the people we thought were going to be in Heaven will not be in Heaven. And we will be surprised that many people we thought would never be in Heaven will end up in Heaven.

Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Who Will Be In Heaven?” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2016.

Scripture quotations are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.lockman.org)