From the Home Place

October 18, 202

In the late 1970″s Miss Deb, our three little ones and I oved back to the home ranch after my dad’s death. The winter of 1977-78 was an extremely tough one. We received a foot of snow on Thanksgiving Day and we never saw the ground again unity mid-May. In March the weather man was predicting a really ugly blizzard, so I strung two-hundred feet of rope on steel fence posts from the back door of the house to the calving barn. By midnight, my rope was snowed under, yet the cows had to be checked every couple of hours. So outside I went; I found the barn and shoved a new baby and his mommaI into the barn, After looking the rest of the ‘ol girls over, I headed for the house. Standing at the east door of the barn, I set out heading straight east, which would walk me right into the house.

Well, somewhere in the fifty mile-per-hour wind, and swirling snow, I drifted south about fifty feet, missing the house completely. I stumbled around in the dark, feeling for something familiar when I finally bumped into our cake-shack. From there I knew I had to go back north, which allowed me to find the porch litht on the house. Cold, tired and wet, I put another long in the wood stove and sat quietly for a few minutes, realizing had I not found that cake-shack, they would have eventually found my frozen carcass under a snow drift.

It is really easy to get disorientated when you think you are in one place in the dark, but in reality, you are in a different place. I would suggest that same logic is true with heaven. We humans live as if this earth is our eternal home, but in reality, we are disoriented. It is no sin to be disoriented, but it sure can put a healthy fear into a person when we realize just how close to a disaster we really were!

If you read the post from last week, you read this phrase, “This earth is all of the heaven the non-Christian will ever know, and it is all of the hell the Christian will ever know.” But you see, we Christians often live like this earth is all of the heaven we will ever know, but it is not. If as a Christ-follower I lose focus and start chasing the darkness of this world, the Holy Spirt is here to help us get our lives back on track, if we just ask.

I’m convinced that God guided my steps during that March blizzard back in 1978, and now I know that God is with us in the person of the Holy Spirit. I mean after all, just think of the times that you have seen the Holy Spirit at work in and through your life, giving you a glimpse of heaven. And that is exactly what your Heavenly Father wants you to see!

In Ephesians 1:13 we are told that when you accepted Jesus as your Savior, through faith, you were “sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.” Remember Jesus’ promise that He would send a “helper” to assist His disciples in their spiritual journey on earth, and the same promise holds true for a Christian’s life as well!

I remember studying this passage in Bible College and realizing that the Holy Spirit is given to believers as an engagement ring. Now put on your thinking cap with me for a moment and let’s look at it: The church, consisting of all believers, is the “bride” of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is given to every believer as an engagement ring is given to a “bride-to-be”. Yet in biblical times, when a young couple became engaged, they were considered married at that moment, they just didn’t live together yet.

In John 14:2 we read, “In my Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you, but I go to prepare a place for you.” Here, Jesus is speaking of the tradition of a Jewish wedding where the groom would give his bride a promise of marriage and then off he would go to prepare their new house as their dwelling place after the formal wedding ceremony. Jesus, our Groom, is preparing our permanent home for us – in heaven!

Now go back to Colossians 3, verse 3, “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Jesus, who is at the “right hand of God” in heaven, is where you are spiritually! As the Jewish bride-to-be would return to her home and hide herself from the groom as much as possible, so are you “hidden” in heaven. But on your wedding day, the day you leave this earth behind, you will be revealed as the bride of Christ!

Within the pages of the Bible, things that are “hidden,” are concealed for only a brief time, and then according to God’s plan, the” hidden” is revealed. That is the idea behind the New Testament word “mystery.” It simply means that which was once hidden is now revealed. So, you, as the bride of Christ, are presently “hidden” – like a bride behind a veil – soon you will be revealed as the bride of the Groom, in heaven.

Scripture challenges us to live like we possess the Holy Spirit, the engagement ring, here and now. “Set your minds on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.” (Col. 3:2) In another words, live like you are already in heaven, not in hell.

I agree, there are times that this life feels like we are in the middle of a severe blizzard. However, just like getting disorientated on a cloudy, dark night, it is extremely easy to not recognize where you are on the road of life! As a Christ-follower, you are already in heaven, now go live like it. No more grumbling and complaining about how bad things are, instead let the evil around you (the dark), drive you to living like “a light” in the darkness. “Let your light so shine that the people around you will see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.”

As Christ-followers we are to live now, like we will live in heaven – in the presence of our Father through the guidance of the Holy Spirt!

Keeping a heavenly focus with you, Neal