Whom Have I in Heaven Besides Thee?
- Joshua Budimlic
- Jul 31
- 6 min read
Why do you want to go to Heaven? I assume that, when it comes time for you to die, Heaven is the place you want to go to—only a madman, or worse, would desire the alternative. But why do you want to go there?
Most people, even irreligious people, think there is such a place as Heaven. For them, such a dreadful place as Hell could never exist; Heaven, by contrast, must exist. I assure you, there are agnostics and atheists abundant who think that, though in their minds God does not exist, a place of rest for humanity must nonetheless be awaiting us—believe me, I have spoken to a number of these folks. And yet, despite the fact that many people in this world suppose such a place as Heaven must exist and that they are undoubtedly going there when they die, they haven’t the slightest clue why they want to go there, much less why they’d want to dwell in that place forever.
A friend of mine in high school held to this Godless position of a God-less Heaven. When I pressed him about Christianity, he brushed me off because in his own words, “I think that Heaven is the place where we all end up no matter what, but I don’t think God will be there.” I should have asked him if he thought Hitler would be there.
There is in our current cultural zeitgeist this prevailing belief that no matter who you are or how you’ve lived your life here below, that the door of Heaven will be open wide upon your death and you will be warmly welcomed in. Whether you were a Christian, Muslim, Jew, atheist, skeptic, or a raving Satanist, chances are you’ll be just fine in the end. Indeed, our society is so open-minded that all of its brains have altogether fallen out. Let me make this abundantly clear: this is an evil, foolish, and deeply demonic doctrine that lulls into comfort and complacency billions of souls that are Hell-bound apart from the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a worldview that promises joy without justification, salvation without sacrifice, peace without propitiation, rest without repentance, and above all it gives to sinful humanity the very thing they most desire: Heaven without the presence of a holy, holy, holy God.
Our fallen world craves a form of Heaven that excludes God Himself. Little do they realize that, without the sovereign rule of a holy and good God, this ‘Heaven’ of theirs would soon turn into a Hell of their own making in no time at all. Without the presence of God in Heaven, it is nothing but a deserted and empty banquet hall; just another well-adorned tomb for sinful humanity to rot in. There is a genuine longing within fallen humanity that desires a world without sickness, suffering, war, crime, and death, but they refuse to acknowledge that such a world is only possible through the Lord they so vehemently deny and hate. These vile things exist because they have rebelled against Him. Well did Jesus diagnose their sickness:
“For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them” (Matthew 13:15).
What sinners ultimately want most is the freedom to sin apart from the just consequences of their sin. Indeed, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19). Thus the desire for a Heaven that permits eternal, unending rebellion and debauchery; a Heaven that does not include God, the Giver of all good and perfect gifts.
But for the Christian, we are still no nearer in answering my initial question than when we began: Why do you want to go to Heaven? Is it to merely escape the judgement of Hell? If so, I should think that a weak motivation—for even the demons and the Devil himself are eager to flee their certain doom. Or perhaps your chief desire is to admire the New Heavens and the New Earth and tread upon those streets of gold? My friend, golden streets can only be walked on and pearly gates swung upon for so short a time before they too lose their glitter and shine. If you were to say that Heaven has your heart because of the loved ones awaiting you there, then I should say you were drawing closer to the mark, for I too have friends I long to see and hold again, but it still will not do—lest we make an idol of our friends and family who have died in the Lord, we must aim higher.
And aim higher we shall.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins with a question, indeed the question of questions. It goes like this: What is the chief end of man? Answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever. There is no loftier destiny than this, dear brother and sister.
To glory God by enjoying Him forever is not an inn we rest at before moving along with our journey—it is the very purpose for which we were made, the very purpose for which we were saved, and the scarlet thread that binds together the testimony of holy Scripture. That he might behold and savor the beauty of God was at the very heart of Moses’ cry when he asked of the Lord, “Please show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18). When the psalmist wrote, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1), he was not thirsting for anything God might give him, but rather he was longing for the gift of God Himself. Later in the Psalms, Asaph gives voice to a thousand generations of saints when he cries out, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Psalm 73:25). In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul joins in this chorus when he declares that, for him, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). In the Gospel of John as the Lord Jesus is giving His high priestly prayer, He makes clear the end and purposes of that life to come: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). O, whom have I in Heaven besides Thee, my Rock and my Redeemer!
This is the journey’s end—and beginning—of the soul saved in Christ. The promise of Jesus in Matthew 5:8 is the ultimate and infinite answer to the great longing of every believer’s soul: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” To see God as He is—to be seen and known and loved by Him—is the end for which we were made. There is nothing outside of this. To behold Christ’s infinite beauty, to converse with His matchless character, and to feast on His loveliness for unending ages lies at the heart of the believer’s deep ache for Heaven.
Only an all-encompassing thirst for an infinite God can satiate the deep well of our souls. This desire swallows up within itself all other desires and gives them root, life, and a lasting, eternal purpose. To see God and be seen by Him—that, my dear Christian, is why you should want to go to Heaven.
“And as [Aslan] spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but 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 forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
—C.S. Lewis in “Farewell to Shadowlands”, the final chapter of The Chronicles of Narnia
Photo by Jason W., Unsplash
Thank you for speaking (writing) truth, Joshua! Your words always inspire and encourage. 😊 Keep up the good work, and may God be glorified!