Why Heaven Isn't My #1 Goal

Re-centering

Church Reset | Jack Wilkie

Dec 02, 2025

Every year around the Christmas season we hear the phrase first uttered by Jesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

Small children are reminded of this as their eyes fill with the things they want and ask for, but deep down we know that lesson is lost on them a lot of times. They are focused on what they want to get.

Unfortunately, I think the same can sometimes be said about us as Christians in the way we talk about heaven.

For many, heaven is the pinnacle of the Christian life. Many Christians will tell you reaching heaven is their #1 goal, and Christianity and the Bible begin to be viewed as a program for getting to heaven and staying out of hell.

Heaven is a wonderful place, and I long to be there with my Lord… but heaven is not the central point of the Christian life.

Here are two reasons why we should reconsider centering our Christianity on heaven

We limit our Christianity

There’s a line in a Dawes song that always catches my attention: “If heaven is all that was promised to me, why shouldn’t I pray for death?” That’s a fair question if you view heaven as the main point of the Christian life. If heaven’s the point of this whole thing, it takes a lot of joy and purpose out of the rest of it.

The question could be rephrased in a number of ways for the Christian life:
If heaven is all that was promised to me, why should I attend that extracurricular church activity?
If heaven is all that was promised to me, why should I give up that TV show the preacher says I shouldn’t watch?
If heaven is all that was promised to me, why should I put extra time into study and prayer?
If heaven is all that was promised to me, why should I pursue a Biblical worldview on men, women, children, the home, work, and life’s other daily concerns?

I don’t think it’s unfair to say that so much of the casualness and lack of commitment seen in today’s Christianity is due to a heaven-centric approach. If the aim is heaven, it’s no wonder some people do the bare minimum.

Like the Rich Young Ruler (Luke 18), they just want to be sure they’ve kept the rules closely enough to get over the line. They are not interested in any of the extras that holiness and maturity would push them to pursue.

Consider it another way…
Which do you think would be more effective: a church full of people who want to go to heaven (so, basically every church ever), or a church full of people who want to glorify God in all that they do?

The Bible Gives a Different Perspective

While getting to heaven and staying out of hell are good motivating factors, they are not the only or even the primary factors. Though I don’t endorse everything in it, I think the Westminster Shorter Catechism got it right on this one: “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever.”

When your goal is to glorify God and find perfect satisfaction in Him alone, heaven becomes all the more beautiful and desirable. And it changes your outlook here.

The song has it right in saying “Oh, how I love Jesus, because He first loved me.” We are Christians because in His self-sacrificial love, Jesus saw our sin problem, left heaven and emptied Himself, came to earth to live as one of us, and went to the cross for us (Philippians 2:5-8).

Once we begin to understand the magnitude of our sin and grasp His love for us, our attention shouldn’t be on what we get out of it but what we can give back to Him—namely, everything we have.

John tells us in 1 John 5:13 that we can know that we have eternal life (present tense), and in John 17:3 he had already explained that eternal life is to know God the Father and Jesus His Son. When we start pursuing a knowledge of and relationship with God rather than a reward for ourselves, it is literally a life-changing realization.

It’s when we understand that that we see that 1 John 5:13 might only be the second greatest promise John recorded for us. The promise of heaven and eternal life isn’t just about avoiding hell and getting a great rest, it’s that we shall be like Him and see Him just as He is (1 John 3:2). It is for this reason that we aim for purity (3:3).

Once we begin to understand the magnitude of our sin and grasp His love for us, our attention shouldn’t be on what we get out of it but what we can give back to Him—namely, everything we have. Properly focused Christianity is an antidote to complacent Christianity.

A Question to Ponder

The hope of heaven is one of the major motivating factors in my life. However, if that hope is only based on avoiding hell, getting nice things, or achieving some personal promises we’re hoping for, we’ve missed the point. We’ve lived a futile life. Consider this incredibly challenging question by author John Piper.

“The critical question for our generation – and for every generation – is this: if you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?”[1]

How is it possible to answer that question? We answer it every day. Is heaven your greatest goal, or is knowing Christ and glorifying Him in life or in death?