To Encourage You

Hebrews 13:14-15 “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.”

As you look to the future, do you have an attitude of anticipation or dread?  Your answer to that question will depend upon the perspective from which you view it.  In the passage above, we are given truths that will set our minds right about this matter if we believe them. One of those truths is that “here we have no lasting city.”  It’s just another way of saying that here, on this earth, everything is passing away.  Whatever we possess, whatever we “have,” it will not last.  To place our hope in things that are passing away is foolish, and a right perspective about these things, things like our homes, our finances, or our good health, is a protection against the dread of losing them. On the other hand, for the believer, the truth is that no matter what the difficulty or lack (such as financial debt, poor health, and the trouble that goes with them), it, too, is passing away.  And that perspective is one more reason to not fear the future. 

But then the other truth to which  the verses above point us is that those who know Christ should be seeking a city that is to come.  We should be living lives of anticipation of wonderful things that are coming to us, things reserved for us for all eternity in the kingdom of God. 

But that reality isn’t something that we only wait for.  No, the reality of eternal life in the kingdom of God is something we possess at this very moment, although its fullness is not yet realized. Like Job, who suffered such incredible loss while he lived on this earth yet had all and more restored to him in the end, the Lord will bless the latter days of the life of every single believer, i.e., those days of eternal life that only come after our death, more than the beginning (Job 42:12).  And what should be our attitude as a result?  As the verses above encourage us, we should “continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name.” 

So, is that how you are living?  If you know Jesus, it should be.  However, if you don’t know Him, you should know that this world you are trusting in is a place where “we have no lasting city.”  It is passing away, and your hopes with it. 

May God help us to turn from the pursuit of the fleeting pleasures of this world, and seek the city that is to come, for it is in such seeking that there is great hope, hope that produces a heart filled with praise for the God Who has guaranteed that city and all the glory that is to come with it.