When you meet a stranger, one of the questions you always ask is, “Where are you from? We all live somewhere; maybe dry, wet, flat, hilly, sea, mountains, lakes, desert. The earth is so diverse in geography, weather, foliage, bugs…you name it. Normally, we love where we are from, where we call home. As Paul writes, we have learned to be content in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.
Believers in the Lord Jesus know that this world is not their home and that they are just passing through, but they also surmise from Scripture that heaven – that is, the new heavens and the new earth – has a great continuity with the creation we know now. Our imagination cannot fully conceive what wonders God has planned for His children in our eternal home, which is not a lightyear removed from the creation God created for us initially. The effects and impact of sin will be gone, while the creative genius of our God shines forth in all its beauty.
Our society for many, not all, is a mobile society. We are blessed to experience the grand variety of the earth. In doing so, we are reminded over and over what a great and mighty and marvelously creative God we have, whom we rightly love and worship not only for how He blesses us, but for who He is. We experience the sights and sounds, the cold and hot, the heights and depths, the little and big, the stark beauty and utter magnificence of our grand planet as we travel it.
However, the greatest joy of all comes from those we share it with. You can easily know from stories like Robinson Crusoe or Castaway that isolation is not what any of us really desires, not forever at least. The earth’s physicality is amazingly diverse, with myriad sights and wonders of beauty, but what really constitutes home for us is who lives there. Fellow creatures joined together by the One who created them constitutes real joy. We are not alone, just as Adam did not remain alone forever.
The earth is not only diverse geographically but is so humanly as well. Heaven is described in Revelation as people from every tribe, tongue, language, and race doing something they love together: worshipping God. Seeing the beautifully diverse earth is one thing; seeing it and sharing it with others is quite another. The fellowship of the saints is the capstone of your life, and this fellowship would not be possible without the God who indwells us.
God created us in His image but not from the same cookie cutter. Just as the earth is beautiful in its magnificent diversity, so is mankind; male and female from every tribe, nation, tongue, and race. We shall return to a pre-Babel state, communicating clearly with all. I do not know whether accents will remain with us, but I am thinking, without any corroboration, they might.
Apart from angels, the height of creation is your fellow man. Your home is with them. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. You will share eternity with these fellow saints, your neighbors in the faith. Practice your love for them now, which is a big part of your becoming fit for heaven!
“Yet she on earth hath union with God the Three in One and mystic, sweet communion with those whose rest is won. O happy ones and holy! Lord give us grace that we, like them, the meek and lowly, in love may dwell with Thee.
(Fourth verse of S.J. Stone’s hymn, “The Church’s One Foundation, 1866)
| If you enjoyed this devotional, sign up below to receive it weekly: |
Stay Updated
Sign up for our monthly newsletter and weekly devotional
