Thursday, February 21, 2013

Excuse Me, Coming Through

Just passing through on my way to glory.


1 Peter 2:11-12  Dear friends, I warn you as "temporary residents and foreigners" to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.  12  Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when He judges the world.

1 Peter 1:17  And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of Him during your time as "foreigners in the land."

Philippians 3:20  But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for Him to return as our Savior.

Going home is something to look forward to with great excitement. It means that the work day is finished or a vacation is over and you get to relax. As good as going home is here on this planet it isn't anything like the home that we will go to some day in glory.

God's children know that Jesus went back to his home in heaven to prepare the place for us (John 14:2-3, Hebrews 11:16), what a glorious place that must be, as wonderful as our world is, it only took six days to create it so just think how amazing heaven will be after all this time that Jesus has been gone.

The best description of heaven is found in Revelation 21-22. It is a place without suffering, a place that won't have any tears (Isaiah 25:8, Revelation 7:17), a place without hospitals where all of the people that live there will have brand new bodies (2 Corinthians 5:1-8) and a place without graveyards or funerals. In heaven there won't be any sin, suffering, sorrow, or pain and we will never do anything to displease God.

Choose which kingdom you love

1 John 2:15-17  Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.  16  For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.  17  And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.
This world has a lot of beauty and it has a lot of cool toys and good times but none of those things should be our true love. If I love this world and it's pleasures and begin to allow it's pleasures to rule my life instead of God then those worldly desires will start to change my thinking and I will start to look just like the people of this world instead of the people in the new world. The people that are citizens of the land that I am going to behave differently and I should look like them.

The Bible cautions us that the love for the world is in conflict with our love for God, they cannot coexist, it is a contradiction to say that I love the sinful pleasures of this world and that I love God and what he loves.

I need to love like God loves, the only thing that I am to love in this world is people, they are the only thing of this world that I can take to my new home in glory. I need to tell as many people as i can so that they can go to God's eternal home that he has made for me. (John 5:28-29, 2 Peter 3:10)