Hal Lindsey: This Home vs Permanent Home

Can’t Feel at Home?

Hal Lindsey 

In 1936, a man named Albert Brumley wrote a song called, “This World is Not My Home.” The chorus and every verse ends with the words: “I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.” I know how he felt. Maybe you do, too. And that’s a good thing. This world is temporary. So are its pleasures and pains. But our citizenship is in heaven. Our joys in Christ are eternal.

 

As followers of Jesus, it makes sense that we feel uncomfortable in a world filled with violence and debauchery. The ache you feel when you watch the news should be normal for Christians. We’re living at the end of Romans chapter one. We live in a time when men and women intentionally “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” (Romans 1:18) By this, they “became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.” (Romans 1:21-22) “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” (Romans 1:25)

 

It’s all summed up in Romans 1:28-32. “Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and, although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

 

That’s the world we live in… but it’s not our home. Philippians 3:20-21 says, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory.”

 

In every way heaven is better than earth. Jesus said to pray, “'Our Father who art in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9) That tells us something magnificent about heaven. God the Father lives there! The scripture we just looked at in Philippians is one of many telling us that Jesus lives there now in His resurrected body. Psalms 16:11 says, “In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”

 

1 Corinthians 2:9-10 tells us, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

 

Unlike the pleasures of earth, the joys of heaven neither dim nor die. 1 Peter 1:4 calls it, “An inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away.”

 

No wonder Colossians 3:2 admonishes all of us to, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.”

 

The songwriter mentioned above, Albert Brumley, is best known for the song, “I’ll Fly Away.” “Some glad morning when this life is over, I’ll fly away. To a home on God's celestial shore, I'll fly away.”

 

Those words are right in line with scripture. Psalms 90:10 says that when “the days of our life” are gone, “we fly away.”

 

Our future does not consist of living in a deteriorating society and in deteriorating bodies. Soon, we’ll fly away — either at the rapture or when we die. Either way, it will be glorious and good. No matter what you face, keep Jesus and heaven in mind. Then, go on your way rejoicing with the full knowledge that some glad morning, you’ll fly away!