Revelation 21:4 (ESV)
⁴ He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

What a wonderful place heaven will be. It will be a place of beauty, unlike anything we have ever seen. But, the attraction of heaven goes beyond outward beauty. It will be a place where nothing will ever make us unhappy again. Sorrow will be things of the past and will never reappear. Even greater will be the fact that all the people of God from all time will be there. The real high-light of heaven, however, will be that we see God face to face (Revelation 22:4).

While being in heaven will be great, it is very important that we think a lot about heaven right now. Paul implied this when he described the armor of God for us.

Ephesians 6:17 (ESV)
¹⁷ And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,

A physical helmet protects the brain from getting injured. A spiritual helmet protects the mind against the assaults of the devil. When we fill our minds with thoughts of heaven and heavenly things, we are stopping the devil from influencing our thinking, as well as how we behave. The devil knows that if he can get inside our heads, he will ultimately defeat us. We must not allow him to do that, and the way we stop him is by putting on the helmet of salvation. Here are some passages that exhort us to think about heaven and heavenly things.

Colossians 3:1-2 (ESV)
¹ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

Colossians 3:16 (ESV)
¹⁶ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

1 Peter 1:13 (NKJV)
¹³ Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

When we do what these passages tell us to do, heaven will never be too far from our thinking. This is what the Hebrews writer meant when he wrote of keeping the hope before us (Hebrews 6:18), that hope, of course, being in heaven.

Along with keeping carnal thoughts and worldly ideas out of our minds, thinking about heaven regularly helps us to live pure lives. John tells us that those who have this hope of heaven purify themselves (1 John 3:3). Why is this so? It is because the more we think of heaven, the more we are reminded of how badly we want to make it there; thus, it encourages godly living. It is from this standpoint that we are sustained by hope (Romans 8:24).

We fill our minds with all kinds of things. Let us make sure that heaven is at the top of the list.

As you wind down for the night, think about these things.