Ma, what is heaven and what is hell?

DISCLAIMER
This is a sharing on my opinions and learnings of a topic in the bible. The following content should not be taken wholesale. I would recommend you to conduct your own study too because I do not claim to have complete expertise on this subject although this post was written with the best of my research and knowledge as of date. I vouch that my sharing is not of a fickle-minded nature because i take the studying and preaching of Word seriously. However, it is subjected to further changes because learning is a lifelong process and i may get new insights. My ultimate aim is to inform and whet your appetite to study the bible more so if you think any of my explanations lacking, that's great! Find the answers and we can have a discussion to strengthen our bible knowledge bank ;)

This post was written 2 years ago and has been edited slightly since then.

"I dont believe in a God who throws people to hell just because they dont believe," they say.

The topic of heaven and hell is such a hot debate that it can even turn people away from religion. Funnily enough, i cared about heaven and hell more when i was a non-Christian than i am now. When people first shared the gospel to me and asked if i had any question, the first thing i asked was if they believe non-believers go to hell. Jump to a few months back when Shaf was telling me how the Quran described paradise to be and she asked me how does the Bible talks about heaven, i had no freaking idea. Irony much?

And so, i was reflecting about this deeply one day. I told myself to be objective for one second and analyse the situation of heaven and hell. Christians believe that Jesus is the only way to God. There can only be 3 consequences to this claim. One, it is true that Jesus is God and all who believe are called to be with Him. Two, Jesus is not God and i will be going to hell because all other religions claim that theirs is the way to heaven and i had fail to do so. Third, there is neither heaven nor hell and in this case, i rest in peace (though i am utterly convinced that there is no incarnation and that there is certainly the existence of a god).

I was thinking oh well, i guess if the truth i believe in is false, i will most likely be in hell with Jesus. I was picturing myself chained in a fiery surrounding (oh, classic depiction of hell) with Jesus next to me. And i suddenly burst out laughing. The scene was so ridiculous. In that split second, i realised that to be with Jesus is heaven. I had thought heaven and hell were simply different destinations due to Chinese folklore, religion, media... all my life. But not so according to the bible. Being with Jesus is heaven and the lack of, hell. There and then, heaven and hell ceased to be a concept of space to me. Instead, it became a concept of being.

Therefore is it weird for me not to care about heaven as much as i did when i wasn't a Christian?

No.

Because I've found my heaven.

And i know i will be in heaven after everything has been said and done.