Heaven's Harmony

Have you ever tried to imagine what heaven will be like? Sometimes you hear it described as people worshiping together and enjoying fellowship in love and and harmony but that's hard to imagine in our broken world. Many of us have experience with churches and relationships that are broken and divided by malicious words, bitter feelings and hateful gossip that can separate us from each other and from the Lord, eventually leading us to ruin. It's not a pretty picture. But was it always this way? Has the church always struggled with these things?

The short answer is when you put a group of people together for any length of time problems are going to crop up because people are sinners and we live in a fallen world. Christians aren't sinless saints they're broken sinners who have seen their need for a Savior and started down the road to sanctification. In simpler terms, we're saints because we've repented and been forgiven, not because we've stopped sinning.

However I was reading in Acts about the very beginning of the church and I found a beautiful picture that I think must be a little like getting a sneak peek into heaven.

Acts 2: 42-47
"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day the continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those were being saved."

Okay, so as far as I know in heaven we won't have property to buy or sell. There will be no one in need either. There's probably a few other things that means it's not a perfectly accurate picture of heaven but there's a theme throughout these verses that we will see in heaven. Unity. Love. Harmony. Fellowship.

These are things that we as humans crave, acceptance, belonging, and sometimes we are blessed to find that here on earth. We find that feeling in our friends, our relationships, even our churches. It's not perfect but that's why we look to the future because someday we will experience even more then what the apostles and early believers experienced in Acts 2. Someday in heaven we will be at peace with each other, find our true home, a place to belong, and a unity and harmony unlike any we see on earth.