Perhaps many people have such a difficult time believing in heaven because Christians take so few risks.
My guess is that this is the case due to the fact that so many Christians focus on the temporal rather than the eternal. Part of sinful human nature seems to be that we think about what is visible more than about what is invisible. Unfortunately, the things we think about tend to become the things we value. The things we value shape the decisions we make. Soon we can find ourselves making decisions based on the wrong things. Risk-taking (in regard to earthly, temporary things) should be no big deal for Christians if it is for the sake of God’s Kingdom, which is eternal. If this were true more often, I believe it would get people’s attention in a remarkable fashion.
Matt 16:21-23
21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
1 John 2:15-17
15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world-the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does-comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
2 Cor 4:16-18
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
