What Does Heaven Look Like?

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throneand before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”    -Revelation 7:9-10

In the final book of the Bible there are several pictures of heaven like this one. None of them have individuals sitting out on a cloud playing the harp! They are all scenes of people in community connecting to God.

One of the striking elements of these visions of heaven is that culture is not erased. Instead, when Jesus gives John this vision into heaven, John can distinguish folks from "every nation, tribe, people and language."  There are over 6,500 languages spoken in the world today - that's a lot of groups of different kinds of people! And every one of them is in heaven.

So today, to start preparing for heaven (isn't that what Jesus is calling us to do when he taught us to pray "your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven"?), why not pray for people around the world to know Jesus? And why not start by praying for your own heart to be increasingly open to loving people who come from a different tribe than you or speak a different language than you? Might as well start working for heaven now...