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Heaven: One Man’s Trash, or Your Treasure?

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There is a saying: “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” This is especially true when the topic of heaven comes up. While some Christians long for to walk on the streets of gold, many today (including Christians) are not interested in it. Some have bought into the world’s appraisal of heaven: its an empty promise that’s glittery but boring (sitting on a cloud playing a harp while eating cream cheese). Basically, the world sees it as trash.

Of course, Jesus has a different view of the value of heaven. In Matthew 13:44, 45, He shares two important parables on the subject.

The first parable is about a man who happened to find a treasure in a field. It was so valuable he went home and sold everything he had so he could return and buy the field (guaranteeing that treasure, and possibly more, was his). His second parable is about a merchant who was purposefully searching for fine pearls. Then, he found it: the Pearl of great price. It wasn’t just that the pearl cost a lot, but it was worth a lot. So much that the man ran home, sold all he had, and bought the pearl.

Jesus’ point? Heaven is so valuable that if you just bumped into its truth, or fell onto its light, you would give up everything this world offers in order to make sure it was yours. Heaven is so valuable that if you are really looking for what is priceless, and are honestly searching for “fine pearls,” then when you see the value of Heaven, you’d gladly give up all this world gave you in order to make it yours. The world sees heaven as trash but Jesus says it is a treasure and a priceless pearl. Is He right?

Maybe we need a reminder of, or an introduction to, heaven’s glory. (See Revelation 21:3–5 and Revelation 22:1–5. There are many more texts about heaven, but these are a good starting point.) Here’s a summary:

God is going to wipe away every tear from our eyes (Revelation 21:4). There will be no more sickness or death: no more colds, no more heart attacks, no more strokes, and no more cancer!

The curse will be wiped out (Revelation 22:3). In other words, no more sin: No more stealing, no more lying, no more broken relationships, no more selfishness, and no more terrorism.

We will have new bodies (1 Corinthians 15:51–53): our eyes and ears will be opened, legs and necks and backs renewed. We will run and not grow weary, walk and not be faint (Isaiah 40:31).

We won’t need hospitals, or insurance, or doctors, or nurses. We won’t need police, or congress, or military, or presidents. We won’t need elders, or deacons, or treasurers, or clerks. We won’t need new churches, or seminars, or cooking classes, or VBS. And we won’t need pastors (I’m okay with that).

Jesus will be our High Priest and God will be our God. We will see His face (Revelation 22:4), and will worship Him on the Sabbath with all creation (Isaiah 66:22, 23), and we will live for ever and ever, and ever, and ever (Revelation 22:5)!

Nothing on this earth compares. Nothing. Heaven far outweighs anything we might have to give up here.

But what if the man in the field left the treasure there? What if the merchant just walked on by? What if they had seen it as one man’s trash, but not as their treasure?

One summer, while visiting my grandparents, I bought a pack of baseball cards. Noticing my enthusiasm, my grandpa told me that I could have his cards from his childhood. Of course I accepted. As we searched for his cards, he named off a few cards he remembered having. One caught my attention: Mickey Mantle’s rookie year card (alone worth about $500,000 then). He also had complete sets of cards for several years which would have been worth no less than $1 million. As you can imagine, I began to search harder. After a while, he finally asked my grandma if she had seen the box of his baseball cards. “Oh, those worthless things,” she said. “I threw them out in the trash.” One grandma’s trash…

God has provided a glimpse of the glory waiting for us in heaven, but have you found its treasure? Have you seen its value? Do you want to claim it as yours, or do you just see it as one man’s trash? Remember, every bit of treasure of this earth will just be trash when Jesus comes, but on that day, even the trash of Heaven will be a treasure. Fix your eyes on the pearl, Keep sight of the glory. Claim your treasure… today!

Photo by Tim Bogdanov on Unsplash

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16–18)

My New Book: Overcoming Laodicea

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I am so excited to announce that my new book is now published! I have been working quite hard to get it out before Christmas (which I did, but it probably wouldn’t ship on time for Christmas though). You can read about the book on my Books page. It is available in paperback as well as in ebook format. Here’s a preview from the first chapter:

​A Very Laodicean Problem

The wind blew, tugging at his hair. The humid, salty air filled his nostrils. Everywhere he looked from his look-out point was water. John was on the island of Patmos. He was not there on vacation. He was there because of the Gospel; he was there because of Jesus. Specifically, he was there because he would not keep quiet about Jesus. Obviously, not everyone enjoyed his passion for Jesus—he was on a prison island. It is likely that some thought his passion for Jesus was a danger to society. Little did they know, whoever they were, that imprisoning John on a remote island would not be enough to stop his influence—God was not finished using him. No, Jesus had something greater in mind.

One day, while John was worshipping, he was taken into vision. What unfolded before him would greatly impact mankind. The first scene John experienced was of seven golden lamp stands and a man standing in the middle of them. The one standing before him looked familiar, one like the son of man, and yet different—more magnificent and triumphant. Then it hit him: he was standing before Jesus, his Jesus. How his heart must have leapt! He had been imprisoned on that island because of his love for Jesus. The worship session came to a climax as he fell at Jesus’ feet. Being in the presence of Jesus again filled him with awe, wonder, and fear. But Jesus touched his shoulder and encouraged him, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Revelation 1:17, 18).

John was then instructed to write down everything he would hear and see, both things that were happening in his day and the things that would happen later. He obeyed. The result of his writings comes to us as the book of Revelation. You may have heard of it; you may even be familiar with it. To many, it is a scary and confusing book—mainly due to the symbolic nature of the book as well as its dark portrait of things to come. According to John, though, it was not merely a book about the future—not just a revelation of last-day events—it is the revelation of Jesus Christ (Revelation 1:1). You see, for John everything was about Jesus. To each of the disciples in John’s day, Jesus was everything. Sadly, this is no longer true among professed Christians. Many things have taken Jesus’ place as first priority in our lives. Only when modern Christians share the disciples’ passion for Jesus will we truly be a remnant of the early church. Jesus was everything to the early church, but things changed.

John was shown many things in his visions. He saw beasts and plagues and battles—each scary in their own way. But the scariest scenes must have been the changes he would see in the followers of Christ. These changes are first revealed in the letters to the Seven Churches (Revelation 2 and 3). Whether you view these letters to be a timeline description of Christianity or a general description of Christianity in any age, you cannot miss the changes they describe. Although these letters reveal people who remain faithful to Jesus, they also show an increasingly compromised church that is spiritually lacking. One letter, specifically, reveals a serious spiritual problem that would plague Christianity: the letter to the church in Laodicea.

Laodicea’s letter stands out among the others for an unfortunate reason: in the letter, Jesus has nothing good to say about them. In every other letter, even when there was compromise or error to correct, Jesus said something positive about those who were still faithful in the church. He commended Ephesus for their toil and patience and for not putting up with evil (Revelation 2:2). Even Pergamum, the church that dwelt “where Satan’s throne is” and was full of evil, Jesus praised some of them for holding onto His name and not losing faith (Revelation 2:13). Yet, there is not one good thing coming from Laodicea–nothing that earns praise from Jesus.

Instead, their condition is graphically described: “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit [lit. vomit] you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15, 16). Basically, their “Christianity” made God want to gag. Wow. Of course, when was the last time you were thirsty and felt that a big glass of lukewarm, stagnant pond water would hit the spot? I’m guessing never. Their condition doesn’t start off well. Sadly, He wasn’t finished. He added, “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked” (Revelation 3:17). God is describing His people—members of His church—and they have a problem, a very big problem.

The Testimony of Jesus

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Earlier this week, someone asked me what exactly is meant by the phrase “the testimony of Jesus”? Here is the results of my study of it.

The phrase is found in Revelation 12:17 in its description of the people with whom the “dragon” went out to make war against: “those who obey God’s commands and hold to the testimony of Jesus” (emphasis mine). This phrase is found only in Revelation (and only three times). However, the idea within this phrase can be understood throughout the New Testament.

First, we should look at the passages that contain the phase. We’ve already seen one, Revelation 12:17—it is part of the identifying characteristic of an obedient group of God’s people whom the dragon [Satan] makes war against. It is also found in the beginning of the book of Revelation, Revelation 1:9. In this verse, John says, “I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (emphasis mine). So part of the reason for John’s imprisonment on Patmos was this “testimony of Jesus.” However, this verse does not explain what it is, only that it was understood and available in John’s day.

The only other passage in which the phrase is found, Revelation 19:10, says this: “Then I fell down at his feet to worship him [an angel], but he said to me, ‘You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” This passage reiterates that John, and the other disciples, held on to the testimony of Jesus. Then it ends with what many use as a definition: “For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” If this is a definition, however, we are left with a greater mystery: what is this “spirit of prophecy”? (The phrase is only found in this verse.)

We must be careful to not make it overly complicated. First of all, the word “is” does not necessarily mean “equal to.” If we said “the sky is blue,” we understand that blue is a description of the sky, not that everything blue is sky or that blue is the definition of sky. I suggest that we can understand it best as a description rather than a definition. Why? The spirit of prophecy is not a proper noun, as in referring to a specific thing, but rather it expands what the testimony of Jesus is about. As a descriptive phrase, we could understand it as describing the testimony of Jesus as being the spirit, or breath or essence, of prophecy—it is what prophecy is all about.

We need to also understand the phrase itself. It is not cryptic. It is straight forward: the testimony of Jesus. What is a testimony? The Greek word it is translated from means “to provide information [or, if a noun, simply the information itself] about a person or an event concerning which the speaker has direct knowledge.” It is most often translated “testimony” or “witness” (and sometimes even “martyr”—we get our English word martyr from this word). In addition, the grammar of the Greek shows this to be a “possessive” phrase. In other words, it is not a testimony about Jesus, but is His testimony. Therefore, what John, the disciples, and the people in Revelation 12 are holding onto is “information about a person or an event concerning which Jesus has direct knowledge.”

When Jesus walked this earth, He testified about the things He knew. In Matthew 5, Jesus used the formula, “you have heard… but I say to you,” to re-teach the truths of Scripture. Throughout His ministry, Jesus revealed the truth of salvation, heaven, and many other subjects. He wasn’t just teaching His opinions either: “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me” (John 7:16), and “I speak of what I have seen with my Father” (John 8:38). On several other occasions, He made it clear that His teachings were coming from God. Part of His witness was in His teachings on the Word of God.

The greatest testimony from Jesus, however, was his testimony about His Father. “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27). In His last hours with His disciples, he reminded them of this: “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. … whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:7, 9). Jesus brought a new, clearer understanding of His Father to us. Many have expressed a dislike of God the Father (due to a misunderstanding of actions in the Old Testament), while having a fondness for Jesus (because of grace). Yet, according to Him, if you want to know what the Father is like, watch Him. The character of Jesus in the New Testament is the same as the God of the Old Testament. Hebrews 1:3 says of Jesus, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.” Therefore, Jesus testifies, through His teachings and His character, the true nature of the Father.

This is why Jesus is described as the “faithful and true witness” (Revelation 3:14). Throughout His life and teachings, Jesus testified of the truth of our Father in heaven, who is merciful and loving, and of His word. This is the testimony of Jesus—the testimony that John, the disciples, and the end-time people of Revelation 12 hold on to. For Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching you are really my disciples” (John 8:31 NIV).