Tuesday, January 23, 2007

My Glimpse at What Heaven Must Be Like

I had an absolutely wonderful Sunday morning. A friend-of-a-friend had recommended a church in town so I got up at a normal time for a Sunday morning and took a 100 Yuan taxis ride down to the Beijing Christian International Fellowship to attend church. This is a church which serves Beijing’s international community and it meets in the auditorium at the 21st Century Hotel. Church services are only open to foreign passport holders, however.

I struck up a conversation with the lady next to me. She made a comment that “this is what heaven will be like.” I immediately found myself in total agreement with her. Here were many people with many skin colors, many foreign accents, many native tougnes (though this was an English language service), and they all forgot their differences to come and worship.

Then the beautiful singing started. I looked around the auditorium again and as I listened I was reminded of Don Piper’s description of the music in heaven in his moving book 90 Minutes in Heaven . There were no clashing sounds. Each sound blended together in joyous praise despite all the differences in the singers. Students. kids, teenagers, Moms, construction workers, factory owners, secretaries, bankers, and goverment officials were all united in praise.

I felt like I’d been given a precious gift. A glimpse into what heaven must be like.






Copyright © 2007 by Philip Hartman - All Rights Reserved



3 comments:

GeNfAitH said...

Yeah, I agree with you also..that's what heaven must be like.

I've been to the International fellowship also when I went to Beijing last year. I felt home when I was there. We can't worship like that in other part of China. I'm serving in the Southern part of China. I went to Beijing to visit my friends. They are blessed to have that freedom to worship with other fellow believers.

Phil said...

genfaith,

It was a moving experience for me to be there. Thanks for letting God use you in China. I hope He'll use you in a mighty way!

GeNfAitH said...

Thanks Phil. I'm blessed with your blog. For sure I'll keep visiting your site.

By the way, there are a lot of brethren also from my country "the Philippines" in the Int'l fellowship in Beijing.

God bless you.