Certain future joy

“Rejoice that your names are written in heaven,”  — Luke 10:20.

A couple years ago, my brother informed me that he saw my name listed on missingmoney.com. 

Missingmoney.com is a web site where you can go, fill out your name, and instantly learn if any money is owed to you by banks, businesses, or government. 

Excited, I checked it out. Sure enough, my name was listed. Now even more excited, I clicked the link. I learned I was owed $100. It was a deposit from our former garbage collection company where we used to live.  

So … I didn’t get rich. But it was exciting for about 60 seconds to know that I had an additional $100 that I didn’t know I had.

And then? Then came the reality that $100 would disappear rather quickly into the bills that come with everyday life … groceries, utilities, car repairs, and home repairs.

While we might enjoy seeing our names written on trophies, plaques, deeds to property, car titles, and checking accounts, Jesus informs us that a greater joy can be found from knowing that our names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20). 

Stop and think about that one for a few moments!  

It’s one thing to know what life might be like next week. To know what life will be like for us 1,000 years from now is quite the promise.

Did Jesus mean we can be certain we will enjoy life in heaven for eternity? Consider a few more quotes from the only person in history who has died and come back to life under His own power:

“These things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His name,” — John 20:31.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever,” — John 6:51.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” — John 3:16.

President Kennedy famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” In the civil realm, that is some good advice.

However, Christ Jesus would say to you: “Ask not what you can do for God. Ask what God has done for you.”

Through faith in Jesus Christ, we don’t simply hope that our name might be written in heaven. Jesus lived the perfect life as our substitute and died on the cross as our substitute, so that we can know that our name is written in heaven!

The $100 I received? It’s long gone.

Knowing we can be certain that our names are written in heaven? 

Therein is reason for a sure hope and a certain joy that can and should permeate daily life.

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