I grew up thinking (and singing) a lot about heaven. The little Baptist churches that reared me—in Oklahoma and Kansas—made much of the “sweet by and by.” Later in life, for a season in my 20s, I convinced myself that too much thinking about heaven was somehow bad. All those old songs and sermons about heaven were quaint comforts but theologically unsophisticated and perhaps counterproductive. If we think too much about heaven, I reasoned, wouldn’t that make us apathetic about our task on earth? Wouldn’t it render the glorious beauty of this world, and the dignity of the work we’ve been called to, less glorious and less dignified?
I no longer think that. As I’ve matured in life and faith, I agree more and more with C. S. Lewis, who famously observed, “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. . . It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”
Contemplating heaven, singing about it, longing for it. . . . These are good things. To be oriented around the eternal is to be more joyful in the temporal. Ironically, we’re most productive and satisfied when we see ourselves as pilgrims here, with heaven our true and permanent home. This perspective also provides ballast and endurance in seasons of suffering or contexts of oppression. In highly comfortable, privileged places it can be easy to think less of heaven. But for those in pain or those experiencing injustice, the thought of heaven is a necessary balm.
Our worst moments on earth should inflame our hearts with hunger for heaven. But so should our best moments. The most piercing, powerful experiences of beauty, goodness, and truth in this life are but echoes and flickers of heaven, after all. “They are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited,” Lewis writes.
Our worst moments on earth should inflame our hearts with hunger for heaven. But so should our best moments.
So let us live in that spirit, embracing the beauty of this world, not in spite of our eyes being fixed on heaven but because of it.
One way we can do that is by filling our ears with music that tunes our hearts to a heavenly key. There are countless songs that are directly or indirectly about heaven, but the following are 57 of my favorites.
I put them together as a playlist on Spotify and Apple Music, and you can see the song list below.
In times good and bad, may these songs stir your soul to long for heaven, with gratitude for the future Christ secured for us: “An inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” (1 Pet. 1:4)
Playlist Songs
1. “On That Day,” CityAlight
2. “One Day,” Cochren & Co.
3. “One Day (When We All Get to Heaven),” Matt Redman
4. “What a Day,” Phil Keaggy
5. “O Day of Peace That Dimly Shines,” Claire Holley
6. “In That Great Gettin’ Up Mornin’,” Harry Belafonte
7. “Almost Home,” Matt Boswell, Matt Papa
8. “Soon and Very Soon,” Andrae Crouch
9. “If I Get to Heaven,” John Van Deusen
10. “Pilgrim,” John Mark McMillan
11. “The High Countries,” Caedmon’s Call
12. “After the Last Tear Falls,” Andrew Peterson
13. “Until These Tears Are Gone,” Young Oceans, Harvest
14. “Where the Streets Have No Name,” U2
15. “Heaven Song,” Phil Wickham
16. “Revelation 22:20–21,” The Corner Room
17. “Acquired in Heaven,” Beautiful Eulogy, Josh White
18. “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” Josh Groban, Lili Haydn
19. “When We See Your Face (Live),” Sovereign Grace Music
20. “Heaven Is in Our Sights,” Citizens, Shea Salisbury
21. “Dreaming of Eden,” Tenielle Neda
22. “Into the West,” Annie Lennox
23. “Paradise,” The Gray Havens
24. “In Paradise,” Rachel Wilhelm
25. “In Paradisum (Requiem, Op. 48: VIII),” Gabriel Fauré
26. “Eternity,” Joshua Leventhal
27. “The Holy City,” Mahalia Jackson
28. “New Jerusalem,” Vertical Worship, Jon Guerra
29. “Revelation Song (Live),” REVERE, Citizens, Mission House
30. “The Revelation of Jesus Christ,” Ghost Ship
31. “When We All Get to Heaven,” Clara Ward
32. “We Will Feast in the House of Zion,” Sandra McCracken
33. “Milky White Way,” Elvis Presley
34. “Gold,” Mixtape for the Milky Way
35. “See You Again,” The Gray Havens
36. “Meet Me In Heaven,” Johnny Cash
37. “Heaven Is My Home,” The Soul Stirrers
38. “Sing Me to Heaven,” Daniel E. Gawthrop
39. “Great Rejoicing,” Thad Cockrell
40. “There Will Be a Day (Isaiah 2),” Caroline Cobb
41. “A Place Called Earth,” Jon Foreman, Lauren Daigle
42. “No Night There,” Mahalia Jackson
43. “Behold,” Mission House
44. “In the Sweet By and By,” Dolly Parton
45. “On Heaven’s Bright Shore,” Alison Krauss and Union Station
46. “Hymn of Heaven,” Phil Wickham
47. “Face to Face,” Zach Williams
48. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” Sam Cooke
49. “Hope,” James Newton Howard
50. “O Day of Peace,” Josh Garrels
51. “Forever with the Lord,” Songs of Grace
52. “When We All Get to Heaven,” Casting Crowns
53. “There Is a Higher Throne,” Keith and Kristyn Getty
54. “All Hail the King of Heaven,” Matt Boswell, Matt Papa
55. “Revelation 19:1,” Sunday Service Choir
56. “Is He Worthy?,” Andrew Peterson
57. “Worthy Is the Lamb . . . Amen (The Messiah),” George Frideric Handel
The Gospel Coalition