THE HOME

 

NOVEMBER 6



THE HOME

"Let not your heart be troubled: 

ye believe in God, 
believe also in me. 

In my Father's house are many mansions: 
if it were not so, I would have told you. 
I go to prepare a place for you.

                                                  John 14:1,2

How familiar with Heaven!

How well acquainted with that "BETTER LAND"

   must Jesus be!
He calls it "MY FATHER’S HOUSE." 
Sweet view of our eternal residence!
 
Dying is but 'going home.
  Going home to our Father.
  Going to our Father's house.

And shall we fear this? 

Fear it! Can we do anything other than desire it?

 
Do we not wish to go home and see our Father? 

We shall not be strangers there,
 so many of our Christian friends 

  have gone home before us.

And if they were not, 

how can we not feel strange where JESUS is!
 
"I leave the world," said Jesus,
"and go unto the Father." 

Such should be our language, in the prospect of death.

O that, with child-like simplicity, 

  we could receive into our minds 

     the testimony of God's Word!

O that we could view death and Heaven just 

  as the Scriptures represent them!

Where would our doubts and fears be then?

What would become of our reluctance to leave the world then?

 
Then, if we speak of departed relatives, 

  who died in the faith of Jesus, 

  we should use similar language to that 

  of Judah before Joseph in reference to Benjamin, 

   "The youngest is this day with our Father!"

We would no longer talk of losing friends or relatives.

Oh no! We should speak of them as 

  being in our Father's house, or 

     of being with our Father!

Is God my Father?" Yes, assuredly, 

  If I believe in Jesus;
  for "you are all the children of God, 

       by faith in Christ Jesus!"

Is God my Father?

Unquestionably he is, if I love the Lord’s people, 

  for “We know that we have passed from death unto life, 

    because we love the brethren.”

My soul, I charge thee, 

  in future to look to Heaven, 

    simply as thy Father's house!

For we know that if our earthly house 

  of this tabernacle were dissolved, 

  we have a building of God, 

  an house not made with hands, 

   eternal in the heavens. 

                              2 Corinthians 5:1

 JAMES SMITH 1869