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For many years now, when my mom cleans the wood furniture in her house, she uses lemon-scented Pledge. Years ago when my brother was little, he loved the smell of that Pledge! Whenever he was around when Mom was cleaning with it he would inhale deeply and say, “Mmmm! Smells like paradise!” To this day we still laugh about that, and any time I smell the scent of lemon or use Pledge, I think of that too - “smells like paradise!”

This is a funny example of what paradise can mean. My brother enjoyed the lemon scent so much he exclaimed that was paradise. My aunt says that paradise will smell like lilacs. But maybe you don’t particularly care for either of those scents, so is paradise something subjective, where we each have our own idea of it?

As we usually do, let’s see what the Bible says about paradise. The book of Revelation speaks a lot about paradise and what it will be like. I’d encourage you to read the chapter of Revelation 21:1-22:5 for all the exciting details. Specifically, Revelation 21:4 says, “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” This echoes a prophesy from the Old Testament book of Isaiah 25:8: “He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.”

So what will paradise be like? There will be no sadness or mourning or crying anymore, since all of those things will have passed away. We will be able to spend all of our days - from the day we arrive there into all eternity - just praising God and being in His glorious presence.

How do we get to paradise? There’s a great example of how simple it really is, from when Jesus was dying on the cross. Go read Luke 23:39-43 for the story. Essentially, one of the criminals who’s dying on a cross next to Jesus realized who He is and that Jesus has done nothing wrong. The criminal asks Jesus to remember him when He comes into His kingdom. Jesus responds, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

All the criminal had to do was acknowledge Jesus as Lord and accept the salvation that Jesus offered, and he would be joining Jesus in paradise! That sounds too good to be true, but it is true! If you want to live out eternity in paradise, all you have to do is the same thing. Accept Jesus as Lord of your entire life and have faith that He died and was raised again just for you. Receive the grace He has to offer you, and you too will be in paradise one day.

I don’t know if paradise will smell like lemons or lilacs or something else entirely better that we can’t even imagine, but I know it will be absolutely amazing!