GOD’S WORD FOR OCTOBER 22 ~ ~Philippians 3:20-21 ~ ~ “ For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our lowly condition into conformity with His glorious body, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”
From the book, We Shall See God, and the chapter entitled “A Prepared Place for a Prepared People”
Part 2
Randy Alcorn:
When it comes to our eternal home, we often imagine that this world as it now is, under the curse, is our ultimate home. C.S. Lewis writes, “Our father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”
Theologian Donald Bloesch suggests, “Our greatest affliction is not anxiety, or even guilt, but rather homesickness – a nostalgia or continual yearning to be at home with God.
Jesus says, “In my Father’s house are many rooms…I go to prepare a place for you.” (John 14;2). the word “place” is singular, but “rooms” is plural. This suggests that Jesus has in mind for each of us an individual dwelling that is a smaller part of the larger place.
The word “room” is cozy and intimate. The term “house” can also be viewed as “estate”; either way, it suggests spaciousness. That is heaven: a place both spacious and intimate. Some of us enjoy coziness, being tucked away in a private space. Some of us enjoy largeness, the freedom of a wide-open space. Most of us enjoy both at various times. The new earth will offer both.
Think of it. The Carpenter from Nazareth promised us, His bride, that He was going to prepare a place for us and would one day come to take us there. Carpenters build things and fix things. Long ago He build a universe that later went wrong, and He’s going to fix it. He has qualities that come in handy in building projects – including being all-knowing and all powerful.
When this life is over – and particularly when we arrive on the new earth – God’s children will truly be able to come home for the first time. Because our home in heaven will never burn, flood, or be blown away, we’ll never have to wonder whether home will still be there when we return. The new heavens and new earth will never disappear. They’ll give a wonderful permanence to the word “home”.
If heaven is truly our home, we should expect it to have the good qualities we associate with home. Home as a term for heaven isn’t simply a metaphor. It describes an actual, physical place – a place promised and built by our Bridegroom; a place we’ll share with loved ones; a place of fond familiarity and comfort and refuge; A place of marvelous smells and tastes, fine food, and great conversation; a place of contemplation and interaction and opportunity to express the gifts and passions that God has given us.
Though many of us affirm a belief in the resurrection of the dead, we don’t understand its implications in terms of “place”. Our truncated doctrine of the Resurrection, which fails to include eternal life on the new earth, dresses up men and women in bodies, then gives them no place to go! This unbiblical stereo-type of the eternal heaven as a vague habitation of disembodied spirits hurts us far more than we realize. We envision an immaterial and utterly unfamiliar heaven that might work for angels or ghosts but for human beings would be the OPPOSITE of home. No wonder there is such ambivalence and uneasiness about heaven in our churches.
Bible scholar W. Graham Scroggie puts it this way: “future existence is not a purely spiritual existence; it demands a life in a body, and in a material universe.
When we see the particular place Jesus has prepared for us – not just for mankind in general but for each of us in particular – we will rejoice. We will realize it is truly the perfect home, tailor made for each of us.
As Spurgeon says, “Brothers and sisters, He will do it well, for He knows all about us. He knows what will give us the most happiness….I know He will prepare us nothing second rate, nothing that could possibly be excelled. We shall have the best of the best, and much of it; we shall have all that even His great heart can give us.
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John 14:2-3
In My Father’s house are many rooms; if that were not so, I would have told you, because I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will take you to Myself, so that where I am, there you also will be.
Hebrews 13:14
For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.
Revelation 21:3
And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,
Ps 91:1
One who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
Will lodge in the shadow of the Almighty.
Revelation 14:13
And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!’” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them.”
Hebrews 3:4
For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.
Hebrews 9:24
For Christ did not enter a holy place made by hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;