Heaven and Paradise

Tracy Asked;
What is the difference between Heaven and Paradise? I understood that we will all be called to meet the Lord in the sky and that is when we will go to Heaven? But Christ told the Thief on the cross that he would be with him that night in Paradise.

The basic difference between Heaven and Paradise is that Heaven is the eternal dwelling place of God and Paradise refers to that pleasant garden God prepared for man.
Actually three heavens are mentioned in the Bible.
!. The air over our heads in which the birds fly.
2. The sky in which the stars shine,
3. The dwelling place of God.

I Cor.2:2 I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.
It is here, in this third Heaven, that Paradise is now located.

V 4 How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

Paradise was originally known as the Garden of Eden.

Gen.2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

It is marked by the presence of the Tree of Life.

Rev.2: 7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God

It will be the site of the New Jerusalem on the New Earth.

Rev. 22:1 And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Paradise is that place in heaven to which all the saved go now, when we die, and are there present with Christ as we await the resurrection.
I Cor.2:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

Phil1: 23 For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: