As many are aware, I love country music. I know, not the best way to start an article, but it’s true. It takes me back to when I was a child, riding through the woods with my dad or riding to the river house to spend the weekend. It’s a time I miss, and music has a way of taking you back in time. However, within the country music genre, and I’m sure many others (though I can’t speak to them) there is a vein of songs that seem to be focused on using the term “heaven.” For example:
Heaven by Kane Brown
Blue Tacoma by Russell Dickerson
Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven by Kenny Chesney
The list could go on and on. I feel it necessary to note, there are some good songs out there about heaven, but these, in particular, seem to have a very low view of it. This is exactly the issue I want to address.
An accurate view of future events and places have a very important role in our lives today. Throughout the book of 1 Thessalonians, Paul uses the Rapture and Second Coming of Jesus Christ as his key encouraging statements. Future events, and
Paul does something similar in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul walks through the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians explaining the resurrection of Christ and of mankind. He concludes the chapter speaking about the change that Christians will go through at the resurrection which will allow them to live in the Kingdom of God (heaven). He finishes this chapter with, “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58). Because of the truth of our future, we can be steadfast, immovable and always abounding in the word of the Lord. Whenever that future gets messed up, our ability to be steadfast, immovable and always abounding in the work of the Lord will be messed up. If our knowledge is false, then so is our actions (assuming we are acting upon what we know or perceive to be true).
Let’s use Heaven by Kane Brown as an example. I like Kane Brown and a lot of his music, but I believe he does a huge disservice to his listeners with this song. The chorus is where we want to focus:
“Everybody’s talking about heaven like they just can’t wait to go
Saying how it’s gonna be so good, so beautiful
Lying next to you, in this bed with you, I ain’t convinced
‘Cause, I don’t know how, I don’t know how heaven, heaven
Could be better than this”
The premise of the song is that lying next to a girl, assuming a partner of sorts, is better than the heaven which everyone seems to want to get to. Let’s even assume this girl is Kane’s wife in the song. I love my wife, but lying, as a broken and corrupted human being next to my wonderful and lovely wife is not even comparable to the joy that we will have in heaven. All of the love, joy, happiness, and contentment my wife brings me will pale in comparison to the love, joy, happiness, and contentment my God will bring me whenever, “the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them” (Revelation 21:3). The Creator of the universe, the
That heaven – nothing could make me long for this earth more than that heaven. That heaven is what gives me encouragement whenever I’m on my high’s and whenever I’m in my lows. Because I am in Jesus, I will one day inherit that heaven…and so will you, if you are in Jesus. Hallelujah.
