Heaven and Home and Hope!

“You’re pre-occupied, honey, aren’t you?” Bev noted last night. And, so I was.  I’ll be ministering to a family of a young woman today and my mind was thinking about their loss.  Driving through our town yesterday I realized anew that Christ’s church has much to do in leading others to know Him.  Our troubled world is an unsettled place – war, terror, poverty, oppression being the lot of millions today.  Those things, and more, made me think of heaven, home, and hope –  the inheritance my Father has prepared for me. 

Am I complaining or in despair? Not at all! I enjoy rich blessings - the love of God, many friendships, a loving wife, great kids – overall a privileged life! What I am trying to say is that even with a good life, there is a longing for that promised place where sin cannot enter, where suffering is unknown, and where intimacy with God is unbroken.  The Psalmist expresses my desire:  "One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple." (Psalm 27:4, NIV)

Our Creator made us to love and serve Him and His Spirit works in us causing us to intensely desire His Presence. We will only fully know rest and communion with Him when we reach Home!  The late Dallas Willard pointed Christians forward to eternity.  Without a real conviction about Heaven and home we risk becoming disillusioned, even embittered, with the passing of time.  Read his thoughts slowly. They are rich with meaning. 

"I meet many faithful Christians who, in spite of their faith, are deeply disappointed
in how their lives have turned out. Sometimes it is a matter of how they experience aging,

which they take to mean they no longer have a future.

But often, due to circumstances or wrongful decisions and actions by others,

what they had hoped to accomplish in life they did not ....

Much of the distress of these people

comes from a failure to realize that their life lies before them…

the life that lies endlessly before us in the kingdom of God." (The Divine Conspiracy) 

Christian, are you taking hold of Heaven, home, and hope that is your inheritance?  Remember, too;  eternal life DOES NOT begin only after we die.   WE are citizens of Heaven, now by the grace of Jesus Christ.   I commune with the Lord of Glory now.   I am called to bring Heaven to earth, to live in earnest expectation of glories to come, while confronting the darkness of sin with the Light of Heaven, right now.   

Abraham is a model for us.  He heard God's call, grasped the reality of eternity, and lived the rest of days here on earth on pilgrimage. Was he perfect?  No! He took some detours from the straight and narrow path, but he never lost sight of where he was going.    "By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God."  (Hebrews 11:8-10, The Message)

Our silly fantasies about heaven can diminish our anticipation of that prepared home.   The images of the misty fog enveloping transparent spirits floating in a ghostly realm, the fat little cherubs strumming harps as their feet dangle over the edge of clouds, are nonsense. Heaven is a real place, created by the same God that thought up the refraction of sunlight by water moisture which produces the beauty of a rainbow.  He did that for a thing of beauty that lasts for a few moments.  The One who designed this temporal world, which is destined for destruction, has built a place where we will live eternally.  If He would make a temporary world of such splendor, what must the eternal home He’s created for to enjoy forever be like?  John tried to describe it for us, but could only speak of gates of pearl and streets of gold.  The amazing beauty of a Mozart composition will sound like a beginner’s piano piece compared to Heaven’s music.  The inspiration I find in Hillsong’s worship song, Oceans, will be nothing compared to the roar of the throngs around the Throne of God who will raise a song of worship.

The best conversations, the deepest love for another, the most wonderful worship, the most blissful day - are just glimpses of what we will enjoy ALL THE TIME in our Home!  

So, by faith, reach out and set your hope in Heaven.  Never lose sight of that place.  When life is overwhelming, when sin threatens to engulf you,  when all seems futile,  when disappointment breaks your heart - look up and thank God that He has written Heaven into your heart.    It is precisely that longing for home that makes us unwilling to settle down and desire our best life now. 

Jesus’ words of promise are our word from the Word.  Read them, believe them; He promised. “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also." (John 14:1-3, NKJV)

_________________________

Onward to the Prize before us,
Soon His beauty we'll behold.
Soon the pearly gates will open,
We shall tread the streets of gold.

When we all get to Heaven,
What a day of rejoicing that will be,
When we all see Jesus,
We'll sing and shout the victory.
-public domain