God has high plans for you and me. He is recruiting for himself a people who will populate heaven. It will be perfect—perfect in splendor, perfect in righteousness. One word describes heaven: perfect! One word describes us: imperfect. So what does God do? Abandon us? Start over? He could, but he loves us too much to do that. Will he populate heaven with rebellious, self-centered citizens? If so, would heaven be heaven?
Colossians 1:19 says, “God was pleased for all of himself to live in Christ.” All the love of God was in Jesus. All the strength of God was in Jesus. All the compassion and power and devotion of God were, for a time, in the earthly body of a carpenter. What started in the Bethlehem cradle culminated on the Jerusalem cross, and God did it all to take us home to heaven.