Going Home -

“Did someone get stung?” my son Hunter asked as he flung open the back door and stepped inside.

One three year old wailed long and loud in the foyer, slamming his full weight on the ground. The second one set off his siren wail while walking down the stairs.

“No, Audrey just told them it’s time to go home,” I said.

. It’s not that my grandsons don’t love home, they were attached to circulating through their agenda at Ni Ni’s. Sam was on train track building time and Theo had just discovered the balcony off of Ni’s room. They were having fun!

It reminded me of the day we took our four new Guire’s old of the old home of the orphanage. One cried and refused clung to the institution. He had no idea what wonderful things were in store for him, he could only cling to the brick and mortar home he KNEW. He didn’t know he had a house with a family waiting for him, an extended family, a yard, a pool, a church family. He only knew what he could see in front of him, what he could grasp in his own hands- an orphanage with fifty-six kids waiting for a forever home.

Kind of like us in our pre-christian state, huh? We wait, long to hear the gospel message and when we do, we cannot fathom what it means. We accept the truth of the gospel, but then some of us stagnate, refusing to leave the orphanage for home. We have a new earthly home, it is not a physical building, it is a sibling-ship in God’s holy family. We are no longer outsiders, exiles, migrants and aliens (Ephesians 2:19). We belong to God’s household. We are no longer slaves. We are brothers. The doors of the institution of slavery and death have been opened. We need only walk out of the darkness and into the light. We are meant to thrive in this new life that Jesus died to give us. We are sons of Him “For Whom every family in heaven and earth is named [that Father from Whom all fatherhood takes its title derives its name.] (Ephesians 3:15).

The second new home is not of this world. We cling to this blue-green sphere as if it were heaven. It is not. We were meant to thrive, to overcome, to be more than conquerors here, YES. But, I think we mislaid the rest of the message- why and how are we meant to do these things. The early Christians didn’t pray for safety, they prayed for boldness.- the boldness to speak the message of the Gospel which is God’s power working unto salvation [for deliverance from eternal death] (Romans 1:16). It is our job to get as many people out of the orphanage of sin and death run by our old father, the devil and into the family of God.

This earth is not our eternal home. We have another one prepared for us by Jesus himself.. It has fruit trees yielding twelve crops of fruit one, a river flowing from the throne of God, houses, all those that have gone before us.There are peoples of every tribe from every nation (Revelations 7:9). The story of mankind begins in a perfect garden-home and it ends in one. Let us not forget that we are made for our heaven-home where the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations and we will see HIS face (Revelation 22: 1-4)

Let us evangelize with adoption gospel with boldness, adopting children into our earthly homes and inviting them into our future heavenly one.