Headed Home

DEVOTION

HEBREWS

HEADED HOME

Heb 11:13-16

13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country — a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

NIV

We have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back. At least that is what the song writing wrote. It would surely have to be on faith that we also look forward to the city which God has prepared for us. Although we have a description of it, as told to us by John, we were never there and we do not know John personally. So we have to believe on faith we are going to a far better country than the one we came from. That is the key of course; we must consider ourselves already from here. This world is not our home, we are just a passing through, as another song writer puts it. But that is the case, this is not our home, we are aliens, foreigners to this our former place of residence. So why do we cling so desperately to stay here? Why do so many of us continue to attempt to amass as much of this world’s goods as they can? Why do many try to fill their life with so much of this world? Should we not be living by faith looking, yearning for that day of departure, with our bags packed, ready to go? In fact should we not already we on the straight and narrow road, headed there? Did not God warn Lot not to look back? Shouldn’t we also refrain from looking back? Once we enter the ark of safety as Moses did, we cannot leave again, and we cannot go back to the place we once lived. Even if Jesus does not return in our lifetime, even if we do not actually see any miracle at all, even though we must continue on by  faith, simply because we know the truth, we believe in God, and we believe God, we believe the Bible is the recorded words of God, spoken to men in the past and it contains  no error. This is the real deal, the true reality in which we must live. Sure we have things in the world, yes we have to live someplace, work somewhere, own some things, buy clothes, food, and other things, so we can sustain our existence here until the time of our home going, but let us not get so comfortable that we stop looking toward the day of our departure. All this is just stuff, which will burn up and be destroyed anyway, so let us live in that reality and seek first the Kingdom of God and all His righteousness. Let us live as we are headed home.