For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Joy is the serious business of Heaven.
 C.S. Lewis
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
John Muir Wilderness, CA
"Every day for all eternity—without pause or end—the riches of the glory of God’s grace in Christ will become increasingly great and beautiful in our perception of them...There will always be more. Gloriously more. Forever."
John Piper
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.
C.S. Lewis
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
"When we reach heaven, we may discover that the richest and deepest and most profitable experiences we had in this world, were those which were gained in the very roads from which we shrank back with dread."
Theodore Cuyler
"This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
A billion years or so into eternity, how many toys we accumulated during this life will not seem too terribly important.
D.A. Carson
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven is too great, hell is too horrible, eternity is too long that we should putter around on the porch of eternity.
John Piper
For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.
When you leave this world, will you be known as the one who accumulated treasures on earth that you couldn't keep? Or will you be recognized as one who invested treasures in heaven that you couldn't lose?
Randy Alcorn
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
Yellowstone National Park
If I had a choice, I would still choose to remain blind... for when I die, the first face I will ever see will be the face of my blessed Saviour.
Fanny Crosby
Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
God hath given to man a short time here upon earth, and yet upon this short time eternity depends.
Jeremy Taylor
Yosemite National Park
And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.
"Those who will not be persuaded now to fly to the arms of divine grace, which are stretched out to receive them, will not be able to flee from the arms of divine wrath, which will shortly be stretched out to destroy them."
Matthew Henry
"He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.
John Muir Wilderness, CA

Ironically, it is only when we know how to die properly that we finally have some inkling about how to truly live here and now.
Michael Horton
When the Gentiles heard this, they [began] rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.
I value all things only by the price they shall gain in eternity.
John Wesley
Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”
We wept when we were born though all around us smiled; so shall we smile when we die while all around us weep.
C.H. Spurgeon
Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life."
"It is certain, that he who doesn’t love Christ doesn’t love heaven; and he who doesn’t love heaven will never see heaven."
Theodore Cuyler
These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
Ah, Christians! What is your whole life but a day fit for the hour of death? What is your business in this world but to prepare for the eternal world?
Thomas Brooks
Yellowstone National Park
And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
Take care of your life and the Lord will take care of your death.
George Whitefield
"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.
Yosemite National Park
Happiness lies not in those things that cannot comfort a man upon a dying bed.
Thomas Brooks
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,
All death can do to the believer is deliver him to Jesus.
John MacArthur
Yosemite National Park
Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.
"How sweet is rest, after fatigue! How sweet will Heaven be, when our toilsome journey is ended."
George Whitefield
The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
"The sum and substance of the preparation needed for a coming eternity is that you believe what the Bible tells you, and do what the Bible bids you."
Thomas Chalmers
"And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name's sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.
Death breaks the union between the body and the soul, but perfects the union between Christ and the soul.
Thomas Watson
Grand Canyon National Park
For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
"...there was never any other way to escape death than for men to flee to Christ."
John Calvin
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.
We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good, if bad, because it works in us patience, humility and the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.
C.S. Lewis
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;
"What should surprise us is not that God would judge sinners (that actually makes sense) but that he would save any of them. Heaven, not hell, is the real mystery of Scripture."
Michael Kruger
 "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.
"The highest honour in heaven will be the reward of the greatest humility on earth."
Matthew Henry
Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Eastern Sierra, CA
"Heaven, in biblical terms, is not primarily a place. It is a shorthand for the full blessing of relationship with God. It is the prodigal son come home. It is the bride being embraced by her husband with tears of joy." 
Rebecca McLaughlin
When a Christian realizes his citizenship is in heaven, he begins acting as a responsible citizen of earth.
Joni Eareckson Tada
The way to heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh.
Jonathan Edwards
The world does not need cool christians who are culturally saturated. It needs exiles with the scent of heaven and the aroma of Christ.
John Piper
If this world has our heart, should we think that heaven is our home? 
Paul Washer
If our lives were always pleasant and never challenging, our faith would scarcely be required and never grow. We would not be much use to the Lord in this life, nor would we be prepared for the life to come. 
Jonathan Stephen
Kauai, HI
If you have not chosen the kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.
William Law
So long as Jesus Christ is there, in heaven before God for us, our salvation will last.
Sinclair Ferguson
The Christian life is a race that will have an end. One day we'll be complete in glory with Christ. We'll receive a prize when this race is finished. But until that time, we must learn to run, endure, persevere, and finish.
Trillia Newnbell
Kauai, HI
Scripture repeatedly makes clear that heaven is a realm of unsurpassed joy, unfading glory, undiminished bliss, unlimited delights, and unending pleasures. Nothing about it can possibly be boring or humdrum. It will be a perfect existence. We will have unbroken fellowship with all heaven's inhabitants. Life there will be devoid of any sorrows, cares, tear, fears, or pain.
 John MacArthur
The soul on earth is an immortal guest, compelled to starve at an unreal feast; a pilgrim panting for the rest to come; an exile, anxious for his native home.
 Hannah More
 How divinely full of glory and pleasure shall that hour be when all the millions of mankind that have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God shall meet together and stand around Him, with every tongue and every heart full of joy and praise! How astonishing will be the glory and the joy of that day when all the saints shall join together in one common song of gratitude and love, and of everlasting thankfulness to this Redeemer! With that unknown delight, and inexpressible satisfaction, shall all that are saved from the ruins of sin and hell address the Lamb that was slain, and rejoice in His presence!
 Isaac Watts
John Muir Wilderness, CA
Without holiness on earth we shall never be prepared to enjoy heaven. Heaven is a holy place. The Lord of heaven is a holy Being. The angels are holy creatures. Holiness is written on everything in heaven... How shall we ever be at home and happy in heaven if we die unholy?
 J. C. Ryle
Some day you will read in the papers that D.L. Moody of East Northfield, is dead. Don't you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now; I shall have gone up higher, that is all, out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal- a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint; a body fashioned like unto His glorious body.
 Dwight L. Moody
A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do.
 C.S. Lewis
John Muir Wilderness, CA
For the Christian, heaven is where Jesus is. We do not need to speculate on what heaven will be like. It is enough to know that we will be forever with Him. When we love anyone with our whole hearts, life begins when we are with that person; it is only in their company that we are really and truly alive. It is so with Christ.  In this world our contact with Him is shadowy, for we can only see through a glass darkly. It is spasmodic, for we are poor creatures and cannot live always on the heights. But the best definition of it is to say that heaven is that state where we will always be with Jesus, and where nothing will separate us from Him anymore.
William Barclay
I know that Christ is all in all; and that it is the presence of God that makes Heaven to be heaven. But yet it much sweetens the thoughts of that place to me that there are there such a multitude of my most dear and precious friends in Christ.
Richard Baxter
 When we enjoy God, we enjoy Him in His eternity without any flux… After many ages, the joys will be as savory and satisfying as if they had been but that moment first tasted by our hungry appetites. When the glory of the Lord shall rise upon you, it shall be so far from ever setting, that after millions of years are expired, as numerous as the sands on the seashore, the sun, in the light of whose countenance you shall live, shall be as bright as at the first appearance; He will be so far from ceasing to flow, that He will flow as strong, as full, as at the first communication of Himself in glory to the creature. God is always vigorous and flourishing; a pure act of life, sparkling new and fresh rays of life and light to the creature, flourishing with a perpetual spring, and contenting the most capacious desire; forming your interest, pleasure, and satisfaction; with an infinite variety, without any change or succession; He will have variety to increase delights, and eternity to perpetuate them; this will be the fruit of the enjoyment of an infinite and eternal God.
Stephen Charnock 
Somehow, somewhere within you is the pattern of the heavenly person you will become, and if you want to catch a glimpse of how glorious and full of splendor your body will be, just do a comparison. Compare a hairy peach pit with the tree it becomes, loaded with fragrant blossoms and sweet fruit. They are totally different, yet the same. Compare a caterpillar with a butterfly. As wet, musty flower bulb with an aromatic hyacinth. A hairy coconut with a graceful palm tree.
Joni Eareckson Tada

Most people hope to go to heaven when they die. This is not surprising, given the generally acknowledged alternatives (either hell or nothingness). However, it is quite revealing to ask people what they hope to do when they get to heaven. Most people anticipate the joys of this world writ large: golf courses with no sand traps or water hazards, heavenly mansions with no worries about mortgage payments. If they could have all of those things without leaving this planet, they would be more than content. Christians, however, long for heaven because they long to be in the nearer presence of the God whom they love with all their hearts, joining in the unstinted, eternal worship of the Lamb.
Iain Duguid
 Heavenly fellowship with friends won’t be some ethereal do-nothingness where we yawn, sit around on clouds, and ogle at angels. Because heaven is the home of redeemed humans, it will be thoroughly“human” in it structure and activities.
Joni Eareckson Tada 
The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows, but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean.
Jonathan Edwards
Will it cause distress in heaven, to know that our unsaved beloved friends and relatives are forever lost? The only way of solving this difficulty is to realize that a perfect knowledge of God and of the wisdom and justice of all His designs and operations will constitute a chief part of the happiness of heaven. We shall be so convinced of the equity of His dealings towards the wicked, so divested of all the weakness of “human sentimentalism,” so absorbed in the love of what is right and just, that the absence of our loved ones from the world of glory, will cause no interruption of our heavenly bliss!
John Angell James
 We are… saplings here, but we shall be transported into our heavenly soil to grow in God’s light. Here our abilities are in blossom; there they shall burst forth with fruits of greater beauty. Our death is but the passing from one degree of loving service to another; the difference is like that of the unborn child and the one who has entered into the experiences of a new life. Our love for God will continue, but awakened with new purity and purposefulness.
Erwin Lutzer 
In reality, everything that is truly precious to us as Christians is in heaven. The Father is there (Matt. 6:9). Jesus Himself is at the Father’s right hand (Heb. 9:24). Many brothers and sisters in Christ are there, too (Heb. 12:23). Our names are recorded there (Luke 10:20). This is our inheritance (1 Pet. 1:4). Our citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20). Our eternal reward is in heaven (Matt. 5:12). In other words, everything we should love everlastingly, everything we rightly value, everything of any eternal worth is in heaven.
John MacArthur
 Blessed be God! There shall be no sorrow in heaven. There shall not be one single tear shed within the courts above. There shall be no more disease and weakness and decay; the coffin, and the funeral, and the grave, and the dark-black mourning shall be things unknown. Our faces shall no more be pale and sad; no more shall we go out from the company of those we love and be parted asunder – that word, farewell, shall never be heard again. There shall be no anxious thought about tomorrow to mar and spoil our enjoyment, no sharp and cutting words to wound our souls; our wants will have come to a perpetual end, and all around us shall be harmony and love.
J.C. Ryle 
Oh, to think of heaven without Christ! It is the same thing as thinking of hell. Heaven without Christ! It is day without the sun, existing without life, feasting without food, seeing without light. It involves a contradiction in terms. Heaven without Christ! Absurd. It is the sea without water, the earth without its fields, the heavens without their stars. There cannot be a heaven without Christ. He is the sum total of bliss, the fountain from which heaven flows, the element of which heaven is composed. Christ is heaven and heaven is Christ.
C.H. Spurgeon
Far from being stuffy and uncomfortable, our worship in heaven will bring us sheer pleasure. It will be unhindered enjoyment of God, unadulterated by any taint of guilt or any fear of insecurity. None of our earthly pleasures can compare with the perfect delight we will derive from heavenly worship. All the joys we derive from earthly love, earthly beauty, and other earthly blessings are nothing in comparison to the pure bliss of heavenly worship before the very face of Him from whom all true blessings flow. Only those who know Him can even begin to appreciate the unadulterated pleasure this will be.
John MacArthur
Our experience of God will never reach its consummation. We will never finally arrive, as if upon reaching a peak we discover there is nothing beyond. Our experience of God will never become stale. It will deepen and develop, intensify and amplify, unfold and increase, broaden and balloon. Our relishing and rejoicing in God will sharpen and spread and extend and progress and mature and flower and blossom and widen and stretch and swell and snowball and inflate and lengthen and augment and advance and proliferate and accumulate and accelerate and multiply and heighten and reach a crescendo that will even then be only the beginning of an eternity of new and fresh insights into the majesty of who God is!
Sam Storms
And let me tell you, the more labour you have put forth for the Kingdom of heaven, the more degrees of glory you shall have. As there are degrees of torment in hell, so of glory in heaven (Matthew 23:14). As one star differeth from another in glory, so shall one saint (1 Corinthians 15:41). Though every vessel of mercy shall be full, yet one may hold more than another.
Thomas Watson
 You will enjoy an eternal companionship in heaven that is more perfect than any earthly partnership. The difference is that you will have such a perfect relationship with every other person in heaven as well. If having such a deep relationship with your spouse here is so wonderful, imagine how glorious it will be to enjoy a perfect relationship with every human in the whole expanse of heaven – forever!
John MacArthur 
 He who lays up treasures on earth spends his life backing away from his treasures. To him, death is loss. He who lays up treasures in heaven looks forward to eternity; he’s moving daily toward his treasures. To him, death is gain. He who spends his life moving toward his treasures has reason to rejoice. Are you despairing or rejoicing?
Randy Alcorn 
Don’t think such heavenly mindedness makes us pilgrims no earthly good. Don’t pooh-pooh it as looking at the world through pie-in-the-sky, rose-colored glasses. Sojourners who think the most of the next world are usually those who are doing the highest good in this one. It is the person whose mind is only on earthly things who, when it comes to earth, does little good.
Joni Eareckson Tada
A life once spent is irrevocable. It will remain to be contemplated through eternity… The same may be said of each day. When it is once past, it is gone forever. All the marks which we put upon it, it will exhibit forever… Each day will not only be a witness of our conduct, but will affect our everlasting destiny… How shall we then wish to see each day marked with usefulness! It is too late to mend the days that are past. The future is in our power. Let us, then, each morning, resolve to send the day into eternity in such a garb as we shall wish it to wear forever. And at night let us reflect that one more day is irrevocably gone, indelibly marked.
Adoniram Judson
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.
C.S. Lewis
In one sense it is possible “to be so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good.” But in a much deeper sense, it is impossible to be of any real earthly good unless we are heavenly minded. Only the heavenly minded will have the patience to continue faithful in God’s work when it becomes hard, unappreciated and seemingly unending. There is no greater cure for discouragement, fatigue or self-pity than to think of being in the presence of the Lord one day and of spending eternity with Him. We should make no apology for being heavenly minded.
John MacArthur
Surely it is not wrong for us to think and talk about Heaven. I like to find out all I can about it. I expect to live there through all eternity. If I were going to dwell in any place in this country, if I were going to make it my home, I would inquire about its climate, about the neighbors I would have – about everything, in fact, that I could learn concerning it. If soon you were going to emigrate, that is the way you would feel. Well, we are all going to emigrate in a very little while. We are going to spend eternity in another world… Is it not natural that we should look and listen and try to find out who is already there and what is the route to take?
D.L. Moody
The Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next.  It is since Christians have begun thinking less of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.  Aim at heaven and you get earth thrown in; aim at earth and you get neither.
C.S. Lewis

 A holy man will…endeavor to set his affections entirely on things above, and to hold things on earth with a very loose hand. He will not neglect the business of the life that now is; but the first place in his mind and thoughts will be given to the life to come. He will aim to live like one whose treasure is in heaven, and to pass through this world like a stranger and pilgrim traveling to his home.
J.C. Ryle 
If we dwell on high with “that great Shepherd of the sheep” we shall care little for all the confused bleatings around us, but if we become “carnal, and walk as men,” we shall have little rest if we listen to this, that, and the other which every poor sheep may bleat about us.
C.H. Spurgeon
For me, true contentment on earth means asking less of this life because more is coming in the next. Godly contentment is great gain. Heavenly gain. Because God has created the appetites in your heart, it stands to reason that He must be the consummation of that hunger. Yes, heaven will galvanize your heart if you focus your faith not on a place of glittery mansions, but on a Person, Jesus, who makes heaven a home.
Joni Eareckson Tada
The heart of a true Christian longs for that blessed day when he will see his Master face-to-face and go out no more. He longs to have done with sinning and repenting, and believing, and to begin that endless life when he shall see as he has been seen, and sin no more. He has found it sweet to live by faith, and he feels it will be sweeter still to live by sight. He has found it pleasant to hear of Christ, and talk of Christ, and read of Christ. How much more pleasant will it be to see Christ with his own eyes, and never to leave Him anymore!
J.C. Ryle
Hearts on earth may say in the course of a joyful experience, “I don’t want this ever to end.” But invariably it does. The hearts of those in heaven say, “I want this to go on forever.” And it will. There is no better news than this.
J.I. Packer
The Christian is the most contented man in the world, but he is the least contented with the world. He is like a traveler in an inn, perfectly satisfied with the inn and its accommodation, considering it as an inn, but putting quite out of all consideration the idea of making it his home.
My Soul, you shall swim in happiness, you shall dive in seas of inconceivable delight by reason of your union with Christ and your delight in Him and His delight in you! I know no better idea of Heaven than to be eternally content with Christ and Christ to be eternally content with me! And all this will happen within a very little time. Therefore, lay aside your cares, dismiss your fears, murmur no more. Such a destiny awaits you that you may well be content.
C.H. Spurgeon
The best moment of a Christian’s life is his last one, because it is the one that is nearest heaven. And then it is that he begins to strike the keynote of the song which he shall sing to all eternity. 
C.H. Spurgeon

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