A Place to Belong…A Place to Call Home
Good Morning Friends,
If every Christian could take a look into heaven with all its joy we might find our world expanded beyond this earthly aging form into something new…a place of blessings chosen…a place to fulfill the purpose for which we were originally made… a relationship forged in the house of the Lord… A Place to Belong… A Place to Call Home.
Scripture: In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
John 14:2 (NRSV)
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23 (NRSV)
See what love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.
1 John 3:1-5 (NRSV)
Message: How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called out as children of God! Because of His love we can rejoice in the common experience and realization that all we have, all we are, belongs to God…that we are to live our lives though the eye of Christ’s righteousness…receiving His mercy and grace. And God doesn’t just call us to believe this, he calls us to belong to it. The entire Bible is the story of God building a family that will support, strengthen, and stir one another up to love and good works for all eternity—and he created you and me to be a part of it. Here Jesus stands at the door of this home and our heart. Jesus is knocking. He has given us the power of choice and if we choose Him we also claim the precious promise of heaven. If…. we grasp our Savior’s teachings about heaven, much of our fear of death is destroyed. We face the future with courage and with a joy created when we belong to something greater than ourselves…when we realize we can accomplish great things when part of something larger than ourselves. Not only do we have a home, we also belong to purpose greater than our self when He enters. So answer the door and invite Him into your home…your heart…your place of worship…your community. See His face when you enter. He will return in like manner when you knock at His heavenly home. So get beyond the “what ifs”….choose Jesus and choose life… heaven is thrown in as a bonus.
Pray that we see our journey home in the comfort and joy of the blessings of belonging…the victory of being valued…the excitement of feeling esteem and the loving caress of being in God’s care. Pray that in the hope of heaven awakened in Jesus and in us, our lives would be forever transformed. Pray that when we gather together to give thanks for God’s goodness and mercy here, we become part of a body of believers that gives thanks to a part of heaven in our hands now but also abiding in the promise of a future forevermore belonging to God.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 