From This Life to the Next: Everything You Want to Know About Heaven

By Judson Cornwall

Unfortunately heaven has become more of an enigma than an anticipated destination. Although you may have seen many depictions of glorious heavenly scenes in movies and heard awe-inspiring testimonials of near- and after-death experiences, you may still be apprehensive about the afterlife.
Heaven is no longer a mystery
Culled from Cornwall’s extraordinary teachings over years of ministry, From this Life to the Next challenges many preconceived ideas about heaven. It claims that the moment of stepping from this life into the next should not be one we dread or fear because Jesus said that He would be there to meet us, and His presence will be our joy. Your pressing questions about heaven will be answered such as:

• Is heaven a real place?
• What is heaven like?
• Where is heaven, and how do we get there?
• What will my body look like?
• Will I recognize loved ones?

REMOVE THE FEAR OF DEATH and the afterlife and rekindle the excitement to one day meet Jesus and dwell in His presence for eternity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charisma House
• Release date: Oct 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781629987187

Book preview

Notes

Introduction

ANTICIPATING HEAVEN

THE MOMENT OF stepping from this life into the next should not be one we dread or fear. Every child of God is waiting for that moment. It will be a very quick and joyful process. Instantly we will be caught up into the presence of God. Jesus said that He would be there to gather us; He will meet us. This life on Earth is nothing more than a short-term time of preparation for our eternal life in heaven. Heaven is God’s home, His abode, and He is going to share that home with me—with you. His presence with us will be the joy of heaven.

I want to help you to know what I have learned about preparing to embark on my trip to heaven. No, I don’t want to tell you what luggage to pack or what airline to travel on. Preparing to make that final trip to heaven does not involve any of the trappings of this life on Earth. Our preparation for heaven is more important than any preparations we may have completed for a trip in this earthly realm in which we live. We must be prepared to enter a different realm—a spiritual realm where we will live forever with our Lord.

During my lifetime of service to my Lord I have been doing my best to prepare for heaven. But that preparation rose to an entirely new level when I received my death sentence from the lips of my doctor. I realized that I had precious few moments left to make my final preparations for the time when I would step from this life into eternity.

Not everyone hears a doctor say he has just months to live, but we all are facing a death sentence. The Bible teaches us that when Adam, the first representative of mankind, sinned in the Garden of Eden, his sin brought death to the entire human race. Not only did natural death to our physical bodies enter the scene, but spiritual death, involving eternal separation from God, also became a sad reality for all of mankind. My death sentence issued by the doctor is not as devastating as the death sentence over every life that has not acknowledged this biblical reality of eternal damnation, referred to in Scripture as the second death (Revelation 20:12–14).

So my question for you is, are you prepared to embark for heaven?

Death is not to be feared. Those who die in Christ are not cheated out of life; they are metamorphosed into the real life. And the best part about that real life will be seeing Jesus face-to-face. John tells us, We shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). Heaven would be glorious even without this, but after seeing Him as He really is—not as we have imagined Him to be, but as He really is—heaven’s joys will be absolutely overwhelming.

Moses is the only man in the Bible who was afforded the privilege of face-to-face communication with God, but in heaven it will be available to all of us. If just knowing Him through the letters He wrote (the Bible) has made Christ so precious, try to picture what it will do to us when we actually behold Him intimately.

I have read the testimonies of several who have had near-death experiences that took them into heaven. Though each was significantly different from the others, it is clear that the beauties of heaven and unhindered life with God Himself defy our imagination.

The Scriptures offer us a few glimpses beyond the veil. John, the beloved disciple, gives us quite a graphic picture of heaven in the Book of Revelation. He presents it as a beautiful city with walls of jasper and streets of gold. Much of this revelation is what I will share with you in this book.

To understand spiritual mysteries requires a point of reference for them to even be describable. We have no such point of reference available to us, for heaven is so unlike Earth as to defy even our wildest imaginations. But we can still try!

Close your eyes, and mentally visualize the most beautiful scene you can. Fill it with flowers, animals, people, or whatever is heavenly to you. Surround yourself with angels, and mentally visualize the presence of God. Perhaps you imagine the most beautiful music you have ever heard while seeing colors so vivid that they seem to almost speak to you. Sniff the aroma that only heaven could produce, and then multiply this ecstasy by a million times, and you would still be far from an accurate description of the heaven God has prepared for His children.

What great grace it will be to live forever with Jesus. But incredible as it seems, I enjoy His loving presence now. I have been especially conscious of the nearness of His presence since I was made aware of how near my exodus is.

God’s grace has been both sufficient and available when I’ve needed it. I know I will lack nothing I need to make the transition into endless life with God. The timing and the method are all in God’s hands, and He does all things well.

Rather than dreading the end of life, I have become homesick for heaven. I hope this book makes you long for heaven even half as much as I do. If it does, it will have been worth all of the labor. I pray that you and I will meet someday in heaven.

Chapter 1

HEAVEN IS A REAL PLACE

ALOT OF PEOPLE wonder if heaven is a real place. The simple answer is, Yes. Heaven is a real place, prepared for real people.

I believe an inner awareness of a real heaven has been placed strongly in the heart of man. There is not a single religion on the face of the earth that does not make a provision for a heaven. The view of that heaven varies greatly, but some sort of utopia beyond this life is offered to satisfy the inner craving that exists.

God the Creator programmed into man a strong desire for and belief in heaven. This very yearning argues favorably for the existence of a literal, real heaven. God would never cause us to desire a heaven if there were no heaven to satisfy that desire. Now we have a taste for and even a foretaste of heaven in God’s graciously allowing us to walk intimately with Him and experience His presence. But what is yet to come will satisfy our every need and longing.

Often when we hear the word heaven, what the concept conveys is a far cry from the literal heaven. Rather, it refers to a place of euphoria or bliss.

There was a day when the church believed, preached, and looked for a literal heaven where man could share God’s home forever. But during the nineteenth century the concept of heaven became increasingly vague, and the twentieth century prostituted what vestige of heaven remained. The word heaven was used usually in connection with dreams, love, lyrics, and fiction until it was divested of any true concept. In the twenty-first century the pendulum is beginning to swing in the opposite direction. As our world becomes increasingly volatile and we are robbed of the security and self-sufficiency we once leaned upon, humanity is searching for a place where safety, peace, and security are not compromised.

The fact that the world has plagiarized, polluted, and profaned the word heaven does not take away from its reality; it merely distracts our attention from it. No amount of labeling lust as heaven on earth can destroy the eternal place God has prepared for His redeemed ones. One of Satan’s favorite tricks, when he has been unsuccessful in destroying faith, is to make the terminology of the Scriptures so secular and common that it loses its sense of reality. But we are not ignorant of his devices (2 Corinthians 2:11). While the world may mean one thing when it says heaven, the Christian should certainly mean something far different.

Another one of Satan’s tricks is to lie and convince us that he is not real. Someone once said, The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist. If he can deceive us into thinking he isn’t real, then he can deceive us into thinking heaven (and hell for that matter) is not real. It is part of his nature to lie: When he speaks a falsehood, he speaks what is natural to him, for he is a liar [himself ] and the father of lies and of all that is false (John 8:44, AMP). The enemy slanders God’s name and His dwelling place (Revelation 13:6)—heaven—as if any attempt to discredit God and His home would do away with both.

SEVEN MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT HEAVEN

Why is it that when one of our brothers or sisters gets close to crossing from this life to the next, we often form special prayer chains to try to talk God out of taking our friend to heaven? Yes, God is a healer. Yes, He has given each of us an assignment to fulfill while we are on this earth. And yes, it is understandable that we would not want to lose the companionship of our loved ones in this life. But if we truly understood what joy awaits us in heaven, we would not want to stand in the way of anyone God was calling home.

Perhaps we are reluctant to release our brothers and sisters into the next life because our perception of what heaven will be like is skewed by