Heaven - christiansquoting.org.uk

Think of--
Stepping on shore, and finding it Heaven!
Of taking hold of a hand, and finding it God's hand.
Of breathing a new air, and finding it celestial air.
Of feeling invigorated, and finding it immortality.
Of passing from storm to tempest to an unbroken calm.
Of waking up, and finding it Home.
I'm but a stranger here, heaven is my home
Earth is a desert drear, heaven is my home
Danger and sorrow stand, round me on every hand
Heaven is my fatherland, heaven is my home

What through the tempest rage, heaven is my home
Short is my pilgrimage, heaven is my home
And time's wild wintry blast, soon shall be overpast
I shall reach home at last, heaven is my home

There at my Saviour's side, heaven is my home
I shall be glorified, heaven is my home
There are the good and blest, those I love most and best
And there I too, shall rest, heaven is my home

Therefore I murmur not, heaven is my home
Whatever my earthly lot, heaven is my home
And I shall surely stand, there at my Lord's right hand
Heaven is my fatherland, heaven is my home.
Thomas R. Taylor

To see God is the promised goal of all our actions and the promised height of all our joys. -- Augustine

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 for ever 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 wee 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 any more. ... William Barclay (1907-1978), The Gospel of John (Vol. 2)

The man who finds God in his earthly happiness ... does not lack reminder that earthly things are transient ... and . .. there will be times when he can say in all sincerity, "I wish I were home." Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Here God gives his people some taste, that they may not faint; and he gives them but a taste, that they may long to be at home, that they may keep humble, that they may sit loose from things below, that they may not break and despise bruised reeds, and that heaven may be more sweet to them at last.
THOMAS BROOKS

For though we very truly hear that the kingdom of God will be filled with splndour, joy, happiness and glory, yet when these things are spoken of, they remain utterly remote from our perception, and as it were, wrapped in obscurities, until that day when he will reveanl to us his glory, that we may behold it face to face. JOHN CALVIN

Let us always remember that the end of the resurrection is eternal happiness, of whose excellence scarcely the minutist part can be described by all that human tongues can say. For though we are truly told that the kingdom of God will be full of light, and gladness, and felcity, and glory, yet the things meant by these words remain most remote from sense, and as it were involved in enigma, until the day arrive on which he will manifest his glory to us face to face. JOHN CALVIN

The sands of time are sinking,
The dawn of Heaven breaks,
The summer morn I've sighed for,
The fair, sweet morn awakes:
Dark, dark hath been the midnight,
But dayspring is at hand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.

Oh! well it is for ever,
Oh! well for evermore,
My nest hung in no forest
Of all this death-doomed shore:
Yea, let the vain world vanish,
As from the ship the strand,
While glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.

There the Red Rose of Sharon
Unfolds its heartmost bloom,
And fills the air of Heaven
With ravishing perfume:
Oh! to behold its blossom,
While by its fragrance fann'd,
Where glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.

The King there, in His beauty,
Without a veil, is seen:
It were a well-spent journey,
Though seven deaths lay between:
The Lamb, with His fair army,
Doth on Mount Zion stand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.

Oh! Christ He is the fountain,
The deep sweet well of love!
The streams on earth I've tasted,
More deep I'll drink above:
There to an ocean fulness
His mercy doth expand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.

Oft in my sea-beat prison
My Lord and I held tryst;
For Anwoth was not Heaven,
E'en preaching was not Christ:
And aye my murkiest storm-cloud
Was by a rainbow spann'd,
Caught from the glory dwelling
In Immanuel's land.

But that He built a Heaven
Of His surpassing love,
A little new Jerusalem,
Like to the one above:
"Lord take me o'er the water,"
Has been my loud demand;
"Take me to love's own country,
Unto Immanuel's land."

But flow'rs need night's cool darkness,
The moonlight and the dew;
So Christ from one who loved him
His shining oft withdrew:--
And then for cause of absence
My troubled soul I scann'd;
But glory, shadeless, shineth
In Immanuel's land.

The little birds of Anwoth,
I used to count them blest;
Now beside happier altars
I go to build my nest:--
O'er these there broods no silence,
No graves around them stand;
For glory, deathless, dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.

Fair Anwoth, by the Solway,
To me thou still art dear!
E'en from the verge of Heaven,
I drop for thee a tear.
Oh! if one soul from Anwoth
Meet me at God's right hand,
My Heaven will be two Heavens,
In Immanuel's land.

I've wrestled on towards Heaven,
'Gainst storm, and wind, and tide.
Now, like a weary traveller
That leaneth on his guide,
Amid the shades of evening,
While sinks life's ling'ring sand,
I hail the glory dawning
From Immanuel's land.

Deep waters cross'd life's pathway,
The hedge of thorns was sharp;
No these lie all behind me--
Oh for a well-tuned harp!
Oh! to join Hallelujah!
With yon triumphant band,
Who sing, where glory dwelleth,
In Immanuel's land.

With mercy and with judgment
My web of time He wove,
And aye the dews of sorrow
Were lustred with His love;--
I'll bless the hand that guided,
I'll bless the heart that plann'd,
When throned where glory dwelleth,
In Immanuel's land.

Soon shall the cup of glory
Wash down earth's bitt'rest woes,
Soon shall the desert's briar
Break into Eden's rose;
The curse shall change to blessing--
The name on earth that's bann'd
Be graven on the white stone
In Immanuel's land.

Oh! I am my Beloved's
And my Beloved is mine!
He brings a poor vile sinner
Into His "house of wine!"
I stand upon His merit,
I know no other stand,
Not e'en where glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.

I shall sleep sound in Jesus,
Fill'd with His likeness rise,
To love and to adore Him,
To see Him with these eyes:--
'Tween me and resurrection
But Paradise doth stand;
Then, then for glory dwelling
In Immanuel's land.

The bride eyes not her garment,
But her dear bridegroom's face;
I will not gaze at glory,
But on my King of Grace--
Not at the crown He gifteth,
But on His pierced hand;--
The Lamb is all the glory
Of Immanuel's land.

I've borne scorn and hatred,
I've borne wrong and shame,
Earth's proud ones have reproach'd me
For Christ's thrice-blessed name:
Where God's seals set the fairest,
They've stampt their foulest brand;
But judgment shines like noon-day
In Immanuel's land.

They've summoned me before them,
But there I may not come
My Lord says "Come up hither,"
My Lord says "Welcome home!"
My kingly King, at His white throne,
My presence doth command,
Where glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.
Annie Ross Cousins ,Last Words of Samuel Rutherford. "Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land."

Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground. Dante Alighieri

He that asks me what heaven is, means not to hear me, but to silence me; He knows I cannot tell him. When I meet him there, I shall be able to tell him, and then he will be as able to tell me; yet then we shall be but able to tell one another. This, this that we enjoy is heaven, but the tongues of Angels, the tongues of glorified Saints, shall not be able to express what that heaven is; for, even in heaven our faculties shall be finite.... John Donne (1573-1631).

To pretend to describe the excellence, the greatness or duration of the happness of heaven by the most artful composition of words would be but to darken and cloud it; to talk of raptures and ecstasies, joy and singing, is but to set forth very low shadows of the reality. JONATHAN EDWARDS

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

How could God invite you to heaven, where the most exciting thing to do all day is gaze upon His glorious face, if you're not in heaven right here on earth when you're alone with Him? Do you think that after you die, suddenly you'll be in heaven and "presto!" all at once you're not going to like worldly things anymore? All of a sudden you'll love more than anything else just to hang out with God, when you couldn't stand being alone with Him even 20 minutes a day?- Keith Green

The world passes away, and we are passing with it; but there is, doubtless, another world, which will endure for ever. Let us fit ourselves for it. -- Samuel Johnson: Letter to Lucy Porter

We have a homing insinct, a "home detector'," and it doesn't ring for earth. That why nearly every society in history except our own instinctively beleives in life after death. Like the grwat mythic wanders, like Ulysses and Aeneas, we have been trying to get home. Earth just doens't smell like home. However good a road it is, however, good a motel it is, however a good training camp it is, it is not home. Heaven is. PETER KREEFT

At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the Nrew Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in. C. S. LEWIS

The things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. C. S. LEWIS

If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought the 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

There is no need to be worried by facetius people who try to make theChristian hope of "heaven" ridiculous by saying they do not want "to spend eternity playing harps." The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. All the scriptual imagery (harps, crowns, gold etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolic attempt to express the inexpressable. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity. Crowns are mentioned to suggest thew fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendour and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold does not rust) and the preciousness of it. People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs. C. S. LEWIS

Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) The Problem of Pain

If the Lord should bring a wicked man to heaven, heaven would be hell to him; for he who loves not grace upon earth will never love it in heaven. -- CHRISTOPHER LOVE

Heaven is like Scotland without the midges........ and the Scots of course.
Old Harry's Game. BBC Radio 4. 16 April 1998

Hearts on earth say in the course of a joyful experience, "I don't want this ever to end." But it invariably 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 world rings changes, it is never constant but in its disappointments. The world is but a great inn, where we are to stay a night or two, and be gone; what madness is it so to set our heart upon our inn, as to forget our home?THOMAS WATSON