Missions – A Glimpse of Heaven

I got an Email from one of my Russian Brothers in Christ on Thursday. It was awesome to receive an email from him as I had not heard from him in ages and I was having a really bad day and feeling kind of depressed. Anyway, in this email he said to me what he believes was the best moment together in Russia

You know the moment of that I remember best of all, when we were worshiping God together on the river bank in Ashan.

I have to agree with him on this. Worshiping God together in Ashan was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. I treasure the friendships I have with the Russians and the time I have spent with them and keep on praying for them and the journeys God is leading them on. Anyway back onto repeating this story.

For the first couple of days at Ashan, I suffered from not having any language and found the worship times really hard as the songs were in Russian and I couldn’t read the Russian Language at all ( I still can’t read Russian that much and my Russian is Ploika). Anyway at one of the worship sessions in Russia I had an epiphany. I realised that we could worship God and that it could cut past the cultural barrier. Especially with the songs that were translated in English to Russian or the really fun simple songs like the la la la la la song. It showed us what we had in common. I came to realise that in worshiping we were participating in a version of heaven on earth. In The reason is that we were both from two different countries, backgroundss, languages, and we were worshipping the same God. This for me this is a glimpse of what heaven will be like. In Revelations it says

Then they sang a new song, "You are worthy to receive the scroll and open its seals, because you were killed. And with your own blood you bought for God people from every tribe, language, nation, and race.
(Rev 5:9)


Mission has the aim of bringing “the nations into the white hot enjoyment of God's glory.” (John Piper) In many ways I felt that this was one of the most spiritual moments of my life. Its funny because many would see the times which are sensationalised, quite overdone. But for me it was the occasion where I discovered a profound truth. Seeing what the aim is of our life is on earth. To see people come to know Jesus, worshiping for him and living for him passionately.

Something else about heaven, we are going to see the end of hate, pain, suffering war. Imagine it. Peace will be finally achieved between once warring tribes. Hutus and Tutsis, Irish Catholics and Protestants, etc, etc, will be worshiping the same God in heaven. They will at last get past their differences, and actually get to see the similarities between one enough (they both know God, and have been changed by his love and grace.)

When I went back to Russia this year, one of the things I really looked forward to was the times of worship. Because of the glimpse of heaven I was able to see in these times.