To Encourage You

Hebrews 11:13-16 “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”

Do you ever listen to yourself speak?  Do you realize that as others hear you it will be a dead giveaway of your faith – or at least it should be? 

In the verses above, the Holy Spirit tells us something about all this.  Here we are told that those who have put their faith in Christ are like the patriarchs of the faith, namely, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  These three men, by their words and their lives, made it “clear that they were seeking a homeland.”  They were different than those who had no faith.  They did things and said things that those who didn’t know God found strange. Although they lived on the earth, in many ways it seemed like they didn’t belong here; they were like “strangers and exiles on the earth.” You see, each of them had been given the same promise by God.  Reference is made to it as God speaks to Jacob in Genesis 28:13-14: “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”  Here God was promising these nomads the land of Israel as a future home for the nation that would come from their loins.  Beyond that, though, God had promised these men that there would be One Who would come from their line in Whom all the families of the earth would be blessed.  With these words God was promising that a Messiah would one day be born to the Jews, and that He would be the way of salvation for all who would believe. When the Messiah did come, He, in turn, promised all believers that “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:1-3).

Here we have the ultimate promise to be fulfilled. Here we have the promise of heaven.  It is such a certain promise that those who are going there are already viewed as strangers and exiles on earth.  It’s their real home, and it will be clearly reflected in their lives and language.  Just like a foreign visitor to another country finds himself or herself in a place with a different language, customs, and interests than their own, so the believer finds himself or herself in such a situation now.  While they are on earth they talk of heavenly things, things like their heavenly Father, their heavenly home, and the promises that await them there.   They speak as if heaven is a certainty, so that they face their current trials and tribulations here on earth as if they were only temporary things. They use whatever abilities, resources, and time that their Lord has given them as if it will matter how they used them when the meet their Lord in the air.  They will glorify God with their bodies, for they know it’s a temple on earth in which He has chosen to dwell while they wait to glorify Him forever in Heaven. And they know that in heaven, the temple “Is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Revelation 21:22), and it’s there that He awaits them. In all of this, their speech and lives will give it away, as the old hymn says so well:

“This world is not my home I’m just a-passin’ through My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore”

My dad often played Jim Reeves’ rendition of this hymn when I lived at home.  But it really wasn’t my home now, was it? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhnXMCqZrdg)