This world is not my home.
This life is not where I live.
Oh sure, it's where my address is. It's where I bank, and
shop and buy vitamins, but it is not where I LIVE. Except that it is.
This Christian life is the constant struggle of living,
actually living, in the TRUTH of this temporal world. This really is NOT
where you and I live.
The devil would like for us to THINK we live here, and that
the kingdom of God is some far off, distant place where Jesus sit's at the
right hand of God and watches us to see how we live THIS life and decide if we
get to live with Him in the next one. There just one small problem with this
thought: What about Grace?
Grace say's "You are not living here, in this world,
you are just passing through. There is nothing to be done HERE that will prove
you're worthy of THERE. Grace already made you a citizen of THERE-- and so
THERE has become HERE!"
Geoff and I have moved 13 times in 13 years of marriage. In
fact if I had to choose a Bible story that most reflects my walk with Christ
over the last 13 years, I would hands down choose the Israelites in the
wilderness. Just wandering around, awaiting God's direction. Crying for
manna, and stretching my achy legs, and complaining that there’s just never
enough to eat around these parts.
God had a purpose in the wandering of his people. In the
Old Testament we see over and over again God calling his people to leave their
home and follow God into the unknown. Noah, Abraham, Lot, Isaac and Jacob...
constant wanderers. The history of the Israelites captivity mirror the
wandering of God’s holy people.
We are still wanderers.
I can’t even tell you how many times I have cried out to
God “Please Lord! Just let us settle down somewhere!”
There is a danger to being settled down somewhere. Settled
so often brings with it a complacency in where you are or have already been. Boredom
sets in. Laziness sets in.
This is the place I have found myself, far too often. I
desire God to do something NEW, but I’m only comfortable in my little box I’ve
made for myself.
But what if I allow God to awaken in me the TRUTH that I am
not at home here? What happens to my box if I awaken to realize that my only
true home is the very heart of God, a heart that moves freely?
Let that sink in a moment.
My home is the heart of Christ.
My home never stops moving, and is always right where I am.
“My prayer is not that you take
them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They
are not of the world, even as I am not of it”
John 17:25-26
If you even want to know where Jesus says you live—look no further than
the Gospel of John. Over and over again, John retells us to WHOM we belong. We
are HIS!
His sheep, his vine, we are his Father’s just as Jesus himself is His
fathers. These promises do not come with conditions aside from one.
“For I gave them the words you
gave me, and they accepted them.”
John 17:8
Rest in this today. No, RUN to this
today. You are SAFE in the heart of God, there is more than enough for you
there. The grace flows freely, brought to the table and delivered by Christ
himself. Pull up a chair, eat your fill, and go out to the world and wander as
Christ himself did- making known the greatness of Grace that is available for
all who long for it.
“Righteous Father, though the
world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you[e] known to them,
and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may
be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
John 17:25-26
With Love,
Erin
