Alright, for all you skiing and outdoor enthusiasts, I’m not admitting that heaven will be an open slalom run or anything like that, but this picture, taken at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, got me thinking about heaven. Strange I know, but let me explain.
Often times we think of heaven the way the Bible records it…streets of gold, pearly gates, walls of jasper, etc. While I believe it will be just like that, and oh so much more, I also think we don’t really consider the way that we will arrive at the finish line. With all of heaven’s grandeur, I don’t know that everyone that makes it to heaven will be dancing and skipping as they pass through those pearly gates. In fact, when I saw this picture, oddly as it may appear, I thought of heaven.
Fact is, one of these skiers won a gold medal! It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t a picture of health. It wasn’t a thing of beauty, but none of that really matters to the person that won the prize…an Olympic gold medal!!! 10 years from now, how this person won will not even be remembered, but that he/she won will be all that will ever matter!
I’ve always been intrigued by a passage of scripture in the New Testament, where the Apostle Paul is explaining how he (and others) survived a shipwreck. Acts 27 (KJV) ends with this: “And the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land.” When it comes to heaven, the only thing that matters is that you get there! There will be people that make it to heaven that are lame, broken down, beat up, exhausted, distressed, overwhelmed…but none of that will matter when they stand on the medal platform and receive an incorruptible crown.
Let me encourage you today, you can make it! You can do this! It will be worth it all! Just remember, somehow…someway…you’re gonna make it.
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