Home

“I’m ready to go home.  I’ve had enough of this world.”

I uttered these words out of emotion and exasperation, over what now I do not even remember, although it could have been any number of things.  In the last week of news, I have seen a teenager who was suing her parents for money to go live on her own because she did not want to abide by their house rules, and unrest in the Ukraine to the point of bloody violence and passionate protests.  Most recently, the world has become somewhat obsessed with a Malaysian airliner that has virtually disappeared into thin air, potentially taking 239 precious lives with it.

I long for home.  I long for the home, that is heaven, that the Lord is preparing for me and for those who have submitted their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

John 14:2-3 says, “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

But as much as I long for home, every time I think these thoughts, I am conflicted, because there is a world around me that is suffering, but even more so, spiritually lost.  There are people in my own family who have chosen (so far) to reject the Lord’s grace and forgiveness of their sins, and to choose this world’s limited and temporal happiness rather than embrace God’s plan of redemption that yields a life of purpose, joy, and true contentment.  My heart aches that I long for a place that they might never see.  My heart aches that I am in somewhat of a hurry to go on to an eternity very different than the one they might face.  My heart aches so much so that I want to commit as much of my time as I possibly can to spreading the Gospel and sharing God’s Word with everyone that will listen.  I think this is God’s will as well because it says in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

The Lord is showing me that it’s okay to long for heaven.  It’s okay to rejoice that He is preparing a room for me and that, because this world is not my home (Hebrews 13:14), many things in it do grieve me deeply.  But He is also showing me that coupled with that longing is a longing to ask Him each and every day to work through me to reach a lost and dying world–billions of people (billions!) that only know to long for things in this world, and then find those things leaving them addicted and empty, hopeless and destitute.

God, use me. . .use us here at Urban Bible Outreach.  This is our heart’s desire, that others too might long for heaven as their home.

2 Corinthians 5:  “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.  Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.  For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.  Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.  For we live by faith, not by sight.  We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.  So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.  We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart.  If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.  For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.  And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for themand was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”