An Imaginative God

“The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.” Revelation 21:21

Everyone talks about the streets of gold, but how often do you hear about a gate made from a single pearl?  This has to be one huge pearl.  This chapter is talking about the New Jerusalem and says it is about 1400 miles by 1400 miles in area.  The walls are 200 feet thick.  There are only twelve ways into this city and each way in is through a gate made of one pearl.  I don’t know how much traffic is going in and out of the city, but since there are only 12 ways in and out there has to be a lot going through each gate.  So these gates have to be huge and the pearls just as big.

I think seeing those gates will be impressive, but what I really want to see are the oysters that grew those pearls.  I want to go diving into the crystal sea and hunt out those oysters and marvel at how huge they are.  If the pearls are just 200 feet in diameter (the thickness of the walls) than the oysters have to be at least a couple thousand feet across.

This picture is a small version of what must live in the crystal sea, in Heaven.

I look around at what God has created in this world and how imaginative He must be. It helps make you realize how awesome our God really is.  When we get to heaven I believe there will be even greater sights, and even then we will only begin to understand how imaginative He really is.  He can create such huge oysters just for building gates.  There is nothing beyond His imagination or His ability. 

When I look at problems here in this world, personal situations or worldwide  problems, I see huge obstacles standing in the way of what I believe is a good resolution.  Health issues, financial problems, marriage conflicts, and any other problems we might have in our lives are infinitesimal situations to God.  He is all powerful, all knowing and has an imagination that has created a universe of trillions of galaxies with billions of different wonders in each one.  Never doubt his imagination to find the right solution for your problem.

Serving God for Whose Sake?

Some day, and not too far in the future, I will get to see Heaven.  I will walk through those gates, which are each made from one single pearl.  Coming from the gate, I enter  that eternal city and stroll down those streets of purest gold. I will open a large blue door and with a smile enter  my new mansion. 
My mansion will be so marvelous that human mind could never have imagined such beauty and workmanship.  Exhibited, for all to see, will be trophies and crowns awarded to me by God for my good works.  I will have angels serving me and bringing my messages.  I will eat from the tree of life and visit anywhere in the universe I desire.
There will be no sickness, no sadness, no death and no fear.  Anything I want, will be provided to me.  I will have God’s power at my beck and call.  Miracles will be normal.  All knowledge will be but a thought away.  How much greater can life be?
Nothing, absolutely nothing, which I said above is about heaven.  It’s only about a place which actually exists and where someday I will live forever but all those things do not make Heaven truly Heaven.  Streets of gold do not make it Heaven.  Mansions do not make it Heaven. Even doing miracles or living forever does not make it Heaven.  The only thing which is important and makes Heaven, Heaven, is that Heaven is where God lives.
If God is not there, Heaven is not where I want to be.  You can keep it all.  If God is on some barren rock out in cold space, I want to be there.  If He gives me a corner of a shack to live in and He is there, than I have a mansion and I want to be there.  I don’t care about anything else.  Keep your rewards, keep your gold and mansions.  Just give me Jesus.
Even eternal life is not worth living without Jesus.  What would be the purpose of living if I did not have Jesus in my life?  Andrae Crouch wrote a song which says, “If heaven was never promised to me, neither the promise to live eternally, it's been worth it just having the Lord in my life.”
I would rather live a few short years in this life and know Jesus, then to live all of eternity and never meet him.  He is my reason for living.  He is the reason I do anything which is good.  My next breath is a waste of energy if somehow my life does not bring him glory.
Someday I will get to Heaven, and I will live eternally as God has promised.  I will be given lavish rewards, but they are all dross compared to simply getting a glance of my saviors face.