Time to Go Home

When I was a kid visiting a friend and having fun, I was always sorry to hear my parent say, "It's time to go home."  I did my best to cram in all the fun I could as I played games, swam in the pool, ate delicious food or explored outside.  I always wanted to catch one more fish, beat one more level in a video game or catch one more pass and do my best to put out of my mind the fun experience must come to an end or that I had to go to school the following day.  Part of the novelty of going to a friend's house was a combination of spending time in the company of someone I enjoyed and the ability to do things not possible at my house.  We didn't have a pool or some of the video games my friends had and it was fun to laugh, compete and enjoy fun times together.

What I took for granted in those fun times is I had a home to go with family members who loved me.  I was incredibly blessed as a child, youth and young man to have parents and a brother and sister who truly made a house feel like a home, a place where you were wanted, accepted and belonged.  A distinction is made between a building and a "home," which is more than merely a domicile.  The Bible teaches at the moment we are home in our physical bodies, and even as one day we leave the family home our souls will one day leave the earth and enter the eternal state.  The life span of houses and bodies on earth are temporary and will end, but for all who are born again our citizenship has been confirmed in heaven.  Philippians 3:20-21 says, "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself."

Though there are many reasons God has given us to desire to live in the beautiful world He has created, I do not believe I could ever have enough fun, enjoyment or satisfaction to be disappointed when God says to me, "It's time to go home."  Can you imagine the moment when an angel taps you on the shoulder and ushers you into eternal glory in the presence with God?  I will jump for joy at the consummation of Christ's salvation.  Gone forever are the aches and pains, sickness, deadlines, dramas, cares and the chronic corruption of sin.  Having been accepted into the beloved by the grace of God, we will enter into a glorious future no words can fully convey.  Christians will finally be brought into a place where we were designed to fit forever, for it is a place prepared for us individually and corporately by Jesus Christ Himself.  Heaven is heaven because Jesus who loves us is there, and to be home with believing people and angels forever is beyond compare.  How good!