Our house is a half-way house

So recently my family moved into a very lovely new build house.  It was an amazing blessing from God - bigger than we thought we could afford with all the mod-cons and a balcony overlooking the canal.  In our eyes it was perfection and every day we thank God for giving it to us.  But I have to keep reminding myself that, no matter how blessed we are here and how amazing this house might be that it is NOWHERE near close to what awaits us in heaven.

Heaven will blow my mind, and really our house here is just a half-way house - a blessing on the way to something better.  The bible says it like this:

"In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade - kept in heaven for you...." 1 Peter 1:3-4

You see, God says that we already have new live and living hope here on earth.  He turns our lives upside down and they are never the same again.  But that is just the pre-cursor to something even better.  It goes on to say that there is an inheritance waiting for us, something that is unthinkable in the world as it can never PERISH, SPOIL or FADE.

Now I have only been in our new house for just over 6 months, but already the nice new cream carpets are starting to have mud stains on them and the bright crisp white painted walls have sticky finger prints.  The paint work is starting to be a little sun damaged and the defects in building it are starting to show.  Even something that seems perfect here on the this earth has slight problems, and more will show over time.  But not so in heaven.  In heaven, our inheritance will stay amazing forever.  And it is being kept safe for us, so we don't have to worry.

If you are starting to get down about the state of this world or what you have in it and worry that perhaps heaven won't be worth it (as lets face it, many things in this life let us down), then please take comfort and encouragement in the fact that we can't even begin to imagine how amazing heaven will be.  Theologians can debate it and discuss it but no-one will ever know what its like until we get there.  We can however stand on God's promise that it will never perish, spoil or fade and that we will be will Him forever.