For 35 years, Randy Alcorn, the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM), has largely focused his research and studies on the concept of a “greater life to come.” The bestselling author has written over 60 books, including The Treasure Principle, Happiness, If God Is Good, and Safely Home.
Heaven: A Comprehensive Guide to Everything the Bible Says About Our Eternal Home is widely considered the most scripturally thorough work to date on Heaven and the New Earth. It has sold over a million copies since its initial release in 2004.
In 2022, Alcorn lost his wife, Nanci, to cancer. Today, all that he has taught about eternity resonates with even greater assurance.
In a recent interview with The Stand, Alcorn expressed his great anticipation of Heaven, even while dealing with grief.
Second-best friends
“Nanci was the love of my life,” Alcorn explained. “We met as freshmen in high school and never dated anyone else after that. Seven years later, after our third year of Bible college, we got married and were married for 47 years. But it was 54 years total that we were each other’s best friends.”
As Nanci’s cancer progressed, the couple often discussed how their deep relationship with one another was only surpassed by their relationship with Jesus.
“We used to talk about how Jesus was each of ours best friend, and we were each other’s second-best friend. This helped us so much because we knew Nanci was going to live with her first-best friend, and I would still be with my best friend because He’s with both of us wherever we are.”
But despite his temporary separation from Nanci, Alcorn does not dwell on the past, but instead lives in anticipation of a far better world yet to come. He encourages other grieving Christians to embrace that same biblical outlook.
“I think what happens sometimes is people – even believers – try to comfort themselves only with memories,” said Alcorn. “But they fail to anticipate and look to the rock-solid truths that have been revealed to us – that we will live forever in the presence of Jesus, and we will be reunited with loved ones who know Him.”
Eternal excitement
Alcorn emphasized that knowing Jesus and growing in Jesus are the keys to the hope of eternity – but not the concept of hope as contemporary culture defines it.
“It’s not like ‘I hope one day I’m going to be a professional football quarterback,’” Alcorn explained. “It’s not this remote, wishful-thinking type of thing. That’s not what hope is in the New Testament. It’s a blood-bought hope. It’s a real hope that Jesus gave His life for. It’s a promise that He made to us, and we can take it to the bank. I mean, it’s absolutely sure. Certain.”
In every chapter of Heaven, that sure hope is analyzed and confirmed with Scripture. That’s why Alcorn invites “heavenly pondering” – whether it’s about puppy dogs, great food, sports, or literature on the New Earth. God has explained to us in Scripture what the future Heaven and the New Earth will be like – not exhaustively, but accurately, he said. In fact, over the past 20 years, Alcorn has revised tidbits of the book’s content to reflect both questions and insights shared by readers.
And the learning won’t stop when Christians get to Heaven, he said. There will be no end to the joy of knowing more and more about the glories of the Savior.
When people express to him that Heaven will be boring and dull, like a never-ending church service, Alcorn counters with 1 Corinthians 10:31: “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
“That’s what we’re commanded to do now – eating, drinking, basic things like that – [as well as] studying science, studying and observing animals. So, what makes us think we will not be learning in Heaven?
“We’re actually told in Ephesians 2 that in the ages to come, God will be revealing unto us the wonders of His riches of grace in Christ. We’ll be learning more and more about God; we will look at the creation, and it will be a restored creation.”
Alcorn reasons, “If the present creation under the fall declares the glory of God, how much more will that future creation … declare His glory?”
For Christians, Alcorn believes that should be an eternally exciting prospect.
Glorious anticipation
Alcorn said the anticipation of future glory with God – a concept that permeates his writings – helped him and Nanci prepare for her suffering and death as well as for his loss and grief.
Referring to 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, Alcorn said, “The trials of this life are achieving in us an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs them all. Therefore, we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are unseen.”
He explained, “The things that are seen are temporary, but the things which are unseen are eternal. So, in every way, this prepared us, especially to be able to talk about Heaven and the New Earth.”
Grieving with hope
But Alcorn readily conceded that even after a lifetime of studying and writing about eternity, Nanci’s sickness and death hit him hard.
“Nobody’s prepared for the diagnosis of cancer,” he declared. “I mean you hear it, and you’re obviously thrown and devastated and all that, and especially as [the cancer] got worse. But we were prepared in another way for many years, having had so many conversations about what
Scripture actually tells us about the world to come.”
Those conversations about eternity with his second-best friend made all the difference for Alcorn.
“It doesn’t minimize the pain,” admitted Alcorn. “I still miss Nanci tremendously. I’m aware of her absence each day, which is a strange way to put it, but it’s true. There is a void or a vacuum in my life, but the Lord has – through the process of grief – restored me to a place of being able to have a conversation like this, to be able to write again, to be able to do things again.”
After a heavy pause, Alcorn added, “There’s only one way you can avoid grief, and that’s to avoid love. If you love somebody and they’re gone, you grieve them.”
But because of Jesus Christ and the home He has prepared for us, believers grieve with hope.
(Digital editor's note: This article was published first in the March 2025 print issue of The Stand. Click HERE for a free six-month subscription.)
