The Fundamental Blog

This is Christmas Eve for me. Not that it’s December 24th, no; it’s Christmas Eve in the respect that tomorrow is an exceptionally happy day for me, in the same way Christmas morning was when I was a child. When I was little I found that the hardest night to fall asleep was the Eve of Christmas. Knowing that the next day would bring the joy of Christmas day was more than I could bear and tomorrow, I am headed back to the house for a few days at home with my wife, so for me, this is Christmas Eve! But as I began to think about the joy I’m feeling about being on the way home, it occurs to me that the Bible is full of, “Going Home,” stories.

There are many accounts of homecomings in the Bible and most are joyful occasions. The prodigal, though unsure of the reception he was likely to experience found that his doubt was turned to celebration at the reunion with his father. He was adorned with the finest robe, sandals and a golden ring while the feast was prepared. There was music and dancing as they dined on the fattened calf and joy filled the house. The older brother was a little less than thrilled about the whole affair but that was due to a wrong perspective on the situation. Though it may have seemed that the prodigal was being celebrated for squandering the wealth he had inherited at the beginning, it was really a matter of expressing the joy over the return of one who was lost, one who was considered dead. It was about the homecoming.

How about the reunion of Jacob, (Israel), with Joseph in Egypt? You know that, that had to be a party just waiting to happen! Think of all the years that had passed while Jacob thought that Joseph had died a horrible death in the jaws of some wild animal only to learn that he was alive and the second most powerful man in all the land of Egypt. I doubt that Jacob, or Joseph, were able to get much sleep the night before they were to come face to face after all that time.

King David rejoiced before the Ark of the Covenant as it was brought home, back into the city of Jerusalem where he, “… danced before the Lord with all his might.” (2 Samuel 6:14). The sounds of singing, harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals set the stage for a celebration of unequalled intensity throughout the region. The Ark was coming home to the place where it belonged. Coming home is always a very special event.

While not on a biblical scale, I have a recollection from my earlier years, something that always amazed me, I’d like to share with you. When I was a preteen, we had a family dog that always traveled with us. If we went away for a weekend, he was there, if we spent 2 weeks at my grandmother’s farm, he was there, wherever we went, that dog was with us. I never could understand how that dog could sleep through all the traffic, the bends and turns of each strange town along the way and yet, when we got within a couple of blocks from home… he went nuts! I know he couldn’t have memorized all the turns and I’m fairly sure that a dashund’s sense of smell played a part, but nevertheless; that dog went from sound asleep to jumping up and down, head out the window, ears flying in the breeze, in about 2 seconds flat! There’s just something about being home again that can not be beat. And who hasn’t felt the sigh of satisfaction sweep over them as they return from a family vacation and fall into their recliner, “Home!”

But now consider that we are all on a sojourn, far away from home. We begin walking in the darkness, stumbling on our way as we try to reach some destination we have off-handedly selected for ourselves. All at once we realize the election of God’s calling in our lives and we turn and begin to walk in the newness of a life in Christ and that’s when we begin to understand that there is a home we should strive for. There exists a celestial kingdom, one which has been prepared for us since the foundations of the earth and all we need to do is trust in Jesus to lead us there.

On the Mount of Transfiguration God spoke from the clouds saying, “This is My Son, whom I have chosen; listen to Him.” (Luke 9:35). Jesus said that He was going to prepare a place for us so that where He is, we may be also; He said that this is not our home; he said that we have a Father in Heaven that loves us and that He, [Jesus], is not, “A,” way, but, “THE,” way, “THE ONLY WAY,” to get to the Father. We learn from the teachings of Christ that we are the creation of a supernatural God, with a supernatural plan for us and that we live in mortal bodies that will one day be replaced by new, imperishable bodies, when we finally get home. We are also taught that the day and the hour could come at any time! We can not know when Jesus will return but we must keep in mind that any day could be the last day on this earth, today could be the eve of our going home! What an awesome thing to meditate upon. It’s all in the Bible.

In fact, the Bible is all about our, “Going Home.” Jesus said that His kingdom is not of this world and since we belong to Him, neither is our home here in this world. The Bible is all about the redemptive plan of God through faith in His Son Jesus Christ, it’s the roadmap that we have been given to tell us how to arrive safely home. Once we repent of our sin and turn away from the pridefulness of our hardened hearts we begin the journey home. And, not only do we have the light of God’s grace to illuminate our path, we have the assurance that we will never walk that path alone.

We should be living every day as a child on Christmas Eve, as the day before we get back from weeks on the road, as the very moment before the sky is torn back and the King of Glory appears riding on the clouds with power. The problem with a mortal language is that it does not give us words for an experience that will be as supernaturally awesome as the coming of the Lord and our going home to be with Him forever. What can compare to the thought of seeing the new Heaven and earth, to be in the new Jerusalem with it’s gates of pearl and streets of pure gold? To exist in a world without sin, without pain and without the cumbersome curse of man’s sin that continually drags us down into lives we were never meant to have to endure; that will be the sweetest of all homecomings.

So lay your heads on your pillows, close those weary eyes and dream of the home we are going to enjoy together. A place of peace, justice and fairness like nothing we have ever known is waiting for all of us who accept Jesus as our sovereign Lord and Saviour. Rest and sleep and dream of a place where every single one of us will forever live out our lives…


All for the Glory of Christ

A woman commented to me a while back, “That command that says to love the Lord; I’m not sure that I do. Not the way I should.” It’s one thing to speak in sweeping generalities and blanketing phrases of passion about how much we love the Lord but it’s a very different thing when our own chickens come home to roost. Ever since I accepted Christ as my own personal Saviour, I always thought that I truly loved the Lord, but in the past few weeks I came upon a situation that has really made me wonder if I am even close to the Biblical standard.

It is nearly impossible to quantify love. But there is a very good way of seeing how the fruit of that love compares with the fruit of the love of something else; by seeing the reaction to the breaking of that love we can make a comparison of the grief that’s felt. With the coming of the fall, I have had the bittersweet experience of helping to move my son into the apartment that he will occupy during his first term at college. Yes, I guess I and my wife are now officially, “Empty Nesters.”

The school is only a couple of hours away and of course we will be on the phone together, but the prospect of not having him at home on a regular, daily basis creates a whole new paradigm as far as what life at home will be like. Being on the road now makes it even harder because though I was there to help him move his belongings into the apartment, I was gone when he actually moved away the following week. He has a great plan though, school and then a career, when he has sights set on places out west. It occurred to me that the night before I had to leave to head back out on the road, could possibly be the last time I would see him for who knows how long; I did not handle it very well. My wife knew that I was losing it and when she asked if I was alright I could only shake my head, “No,” between my heaving sobs. I was grieving the loss of the little boy who was supposed to grow up and live at home forever.

Of course I know that it is not a very realistic outlook concerning the beginning of a young man’s independence and we all hugged and cried and generally became puddles on the floor. All of us were dealing with broken hearts and at the same time knew that, not only was it supposed to be this way, but that we wanted him to go and start his own life. But we were still grieving our loss. And a few days later when I got the call that my wife had just left him at his apartment, we went through it all over again. I expect that we may not be done with it yet, either!

OK, so there’s nothing new under the sun. I know that every parent goes through this at some point and I am fully aware that it isn’t the end of the world but it started me thinking about the way I love my son compared to the way I say I love the Lord. Jesus tells us that unless we love Him more than anything, or anyone on earth, that we are not worthy of Him. I admit it then, I am not worthy. Praise God for His mercy and grace though because He does not withhold either, waiting for us to become worthy.

There are two other Scriptures that need to be included here; First, the Beatitudes say, “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.” This means that those who mourn over their sinfulness, who have a truly sorrowful heart for the errors of their wicked hearts, will one day be soothed. The other is Matthew 22:37-38, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” But do we? Really?

Surely there may have been times, when we were really repentant for our sins but can we recall a time when we fell to the floor in wracking sobs over the disobedience that has separated us from God? Is it that the physical presence of a family member who is only going to live somewhere else is worse than the offense against our invisible God that threatens to remove us from His sight forever? How can it be? How much can we really claim to love God for the sacrifice he made on our behalf when the fruit of our grief clearly shows that minor incidents, (comparatively speaking), receive the emotional response that our sins deserve and our sins get glossed over?

I am learning that Satan can allow us to claim our superficial love for God and be unconcerned because he knows that we will be comfortable enough to stop with that profession and never go deeper to develop the real love that we should have in our hearts for the Maker of Heaven and earth. C.S. Lewis explains in his book, The Screwtape Letters, that the demons need not turn us toward something evil if they only allow us to think we are much farther along our walks than we are and stunt our development by so doing. It is just as effective to stop Christian from walking the Pilgrim’s Path as it is to keep him from reaching the wicket gate to begin with.

But when it comes to the outpouring of one’s grief, that’s when we see the evidence of what holds the most sway in the life of the individual. We may ignore the sin of an adulterous affair, or the greediness of the modern ways of business but if our spouse dies in an accident; we may be destroyed for months, or even years! Do we love the ways, the things, the people of this world more than we love the Lord our God? I can not answer for anyone but myself, but what I learned over the past several weeks tells me I need more time on my knees, more time on my face before the throne. Jesus said that there was no greater love than that a man lay down his life for his friends, yet we go on day after day as though nothing really happened.

“Oh Lord God, I have sinned. I have lifted up my eyes to everything other than Your love and mercy and grace and told myself that it was You I adored, but I am ashamed to say that I have let all the things between Heaven and earth keep me from seeing You. I have loved the ordinary and scorned You, the Almighty, in my negligence. Teach me anew. Rip my hypocritical heart from my chest and replace it with, not a perfect heart, a heart that is able to love and grow and show the grace of Your glory. Oh Lord, make me new so that I might yet have one more chance to live my life…


All for the glory of Christ