This World Is Not My Home

 

The following article was found in Bulletin Digest July 2015 titled, “This World Is Not My Home” written by Michael Gilbert –

It just makes sense that the Lord’s people should discuss their future destination. It also makes sense that we talk about heaven because of the terrible things that happen in our world which remind us that life is short. As a favorite song says, “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.” Heaven is truly “delayed gratification.” As Christians, we are constantly tempted by the world to focus on the here and now – “instant gratification”. We live in a society of instant gratification, a society where people want to delay and defer absolutely nothing. They certainly don’t want to defer the gratification of self-indulgence - they just want to defer the pain that goes along with it. Take, for example, the credit card…oh how folks want what they want, when they want it, so they use the plastic to get it! It’s reflective of the attitude that says, “I want what I want, and I want it now.” Folks are not into anything being put off into the future and we are glad to “sacrifice the future on the altar of the immediate.” We don’t want to wait for anything…the pleasure must be instant, immediate. As a result of living in such a society – a society of materialistic indulgence – sometimes we Christians fall prey to that and we no longer have our affections set on things above, as Colossians 3:1-2 tells us. Rather, we set our affections on instant sinful pleasure. It has become difficult for us to focus on a “hard to understand future home in the afterlife.” As a result, sometimes we become less committed to laying up our treasure in heaven (delayed gratification), and more committed to laying up our treasure here (instant gratification). Let’s fight that temptation!

Everything that is precious to us as Christians is in heaven. For example: Our Father (Matthew 6:9) Our Savior (1 Peter 3:20-21) Our Brothers & Sisters in the Faith (Hebrews 12:22-23) Our Names (Luke 10:20) Our Inheritance (1 Peter 1:3-4) Our Citizenship (Philippians 3:20) Our Eternal Reward (Matthew 5:10-12) Our Master (Ephesians 6:9) Our Treasure (Matthew 6:19-21). If we expect to go to heaven, we must delay earthly gratification for the heavenly reward.

Back in 2008, country music artist Kenny Chesney painted a picture in the song, “Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven” of the desire for “instant gratification” that will cause many to miss heaven. Chesney sang:

“Preacher told me last Sunday mornin’/Son, you better start livin’ right/You need to quit the women and whiskey/And carryin’ on all night/Don’t you wanna hear Him call your name/When you’re standin’ at the pearly gates?/I told the preacher, “Yes I do”/But I hope they don’t call today/I ain’t ready/Everybody wanna go to heaven/Have a mansion high above the clouds/Everybody wanna go to heaven/But nobody wanna go now.”

[Romans 1:18-2:16] We are witnessing more and more of the self-gratifying population of the world being duped by the evil one into “going along to get along”. I believe God is turning them over to their own evil desires letting them run amuck, no longer making any sense, as they govern with their pseudo-sciences of life. In the end, God is not going to judge the world on what it has accomplished, but on what He has established from the very beginning. (Genesis 1) God created the heavens and the earth; every living creature; every plant and seed; man and woman; natures law; and it was good.