As I drove the final miles toward home, the breeze through the car window was pleasant and warm. “There’s no place like home,” I thought, nothing like opening the front door after time away, like sitting around the kitchen table and a cool drink or a hot meal with family or friends. There is nothing like a loving smile and a warm embrace from loved ones as we gather during the holidays. Somehow home must be a preparation, a rehearsal for our eternal home.
Home is where happiness lives, and it is where our Heavenly Father lives. It is where I want to be forever. Someday, I will enter into my eternal state where I will forever experience the peace of God. Until then I must study and think – study and apply God’s Word to life.
I was returning home after a brief absence; Christ will return after His brief absence to take us home and we will never have to nor want to leave home again. My Savior, Jesus Christ, carries the torch of Scripture, which lights the way that I must go. I want to follow Him, so I must learn Bible doctrine. Christ leads me to the high ground where my home in Heaven has been prepared. Yes! I’ll be going home soon.
I am closer to my eternal home than I was yesterday. Each day is a step closer. Each breath is nearer to the last. Each new day is a dawn that may not see the dusk. My appointed time, known only to God from eternity past, is on the western horizon. Soon, I will see His face and those pierced hands and feet. Soon I will be… in His love.
Calamity doesn’t knock on the door before entering, it bursts through without notice. The door to our house could burst open at any moment and death could come thundering in. But, that’s okay – Jesus overcame death and He will be there when the door comes crashing in on me. Even so, come Lord Jesus, for I have kept the faith even though I lost most of the battles against my flesh and the world. But you, Lord, have overcome sin and the flesh; you have defeated death; you have risen from the grave; you are seated at the right hand of my Father in Heaven. I am not afraid – I am anxious. I fear no evil because I am covered by your love, your robe of righteousness, and no man, no evil can pluck me from your nail-scarred hand. Purgatory and hell and death were defeated by my Savior while He was nailed to the cross.
I am watching; I am ready for my Savior; I wait forwardly because I have stopped looking back; I walk impatiently as the Christ of Scripture leads me home up the path that is always forward.
Christ died for you, too. If you will trust His sacrifice in your place for your sin, you too can start your walk with God, forward to eternity. I’ll see you there.
– C. S. Craig
July 30, 2007