Your real Forever Home is waiting for you

You want to know your future? That’s it. Heaven is your future. Unending light, never-ending joy, and the constant presence of God everywhere.

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. So encourage each other with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18)

There’s a phrase people use when they build a custom home based on a floorplan of their dreams. Sometimes it isn’t even a custom home. Sometimes it’s just a home that fits a family’s ideal. They call it a “Forever Home.”

It has a nice ring to it. As someone who has moved a lot and traveled a lot, I can say it’s lovely to have a permanent home base. And of all the places I’ve lived in my life, our old family farm is my home. It’s always been my home. It was home the first time I walked into the old kitchen and saw the painted floors and the peeling wallpaper. And it’s still my home how that I’m sitting bundled up in blankets in my unheated upstairs office where it’s 40 degrees.

But when we say a place is a forever home, do we know what we’re saying? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with having the intention of staying in one place to live. It’s good to have a plan.

But nothing on Earth will last forever. Well, nothing except our souls. And when all we have left is our souls, our physical forever homes aren’t going to do us much good. No matter how much spend in time, effort, money, and repairs to our Forever Homes, they’re going to stay rooted to the ground, and we’re going to fly away someday.

(And, no, we’re not going to talk about Pre-Tribulation, Mid-Tribulation, or Post-Tribulation variants of Eschatology today. That’s not a hill I’m going to die on, folks.)

When we come to the end of our earthly lives, we will stand before God and give an account of our life choices. And if you have trusted Jesus Christ for your salvation, you have a glorious future in heaven waiting.

You want to know your future? That’s it. Heaven is your future. Unending light, never-ending joy, and the constant presence of God everywhere.

As citizens of heaven, that’s our real forever home.

So does that mean we shouldn’t make a home on earth? Should we release all our possessions and live like monks? Well, if that’s what you feel God is calling you to do, you need to do it. But He doesn’t call everyone to that kind of lifestyle. For the majority of us, we are tasked to live in the world without allowing it to define us until it’s time for God to call us to our real home.

But the Bible is full of examples and stories from Jesus and the prophets and the apostles all talking about heaven and the glorious hope of the Church, which is the return of Christ and our eternity in heaven.

I love this passage in 1 Thessalonians for many reasons, but when I started thinking about how God wants a future with us, this was the only section that came to mind. That we will be with the Lord forever and that we should encourage each other with these words.

God has made a future for all of us, and it’s good. It’s so good. He’s already seen it, because He is beyond time. And He has told us over and over again that we have a future with Him. But it’s also important to remember that He wants a future with us.

He wants us there. He wants to spend forever with us. God loves us more than we can understand. He made us, each of us individually with our own little foibles and eccentricities and quirks.

He loves me. He loves you. And He wants to have an eternity together enjoying the life He designed for us. It’s your choice, of course. You don’t have to go God’s way. You can go your own way. He makes that clear repeatedly. But, just so you know, it sounds like the Forever Homes in heaven are going to be pretty awesome.

Questions for Reflection

What is the concern about investing your whole life in earthly things?

Why do you think God wanted us to know the future?

What do you think God concealed so much of the future from us?

Weekly Memory Verse