at home

Life is likened to a journey in Scripture in which God's people are considered pilgrims, strangers, or sojourners through a land that is not yet their home. It is stated that we have no home or resting place in this world, but we seek one that is to come.

Actually in Jesus we begin to have that home right here. That doesn't negate Jesus' promise of preparing a place for us, but by the Spirit there is a place where we can begin to be "at home" even now.

We read that where just two or three are gathered together in Jesus' name, he is there. Even though this is in a certain context, it still applies to any gathering of God's people, such as when we gather on Sunday mornings, or at homes for fellowship.

Jesus claimed that his real family were those who obeyed God. His biological family was not necessarily where he was truly at home. Thankfully later we know that his biological (half-)brothers who had not believed in him, did, after his resurrection.

We can take for granted this oneness we have in Jesus, as Bonhoeffer reminds us. But it's a blessing, though with the tension of us not having arrived to complete maturity in Jesus. Though that's the goal we should all be moving toward together in him, now.

The point here is that we begin to be at home in God and with God's people through Christ by the Spirit. Even with the challenges that brings. This can begin to be true wherever we may be now. And someday will be perfected and true everywhere.

So we need to work at making each other be "at home," in Jesus, through the community we have in the one Spirit and one faith. And we need to help others through God's working into this same fellowship through Jesus, a fellowship of forgiveness and love. And we must show that love to members of our immediate and biological families. Not abandoning them, but praying and seeking their good in Jesus.

What would you like to add to this?

God with us

This Advent season we celebrate the coming and birth of God-with-us, Emmanuel, in Jesus. This was striking to me yesterday at work. Started out as an ordinary day. But ended up extraordinary as it wasn't just me and my friend working together, but actually three of us. God was surely with us.

God makes his Presence and Reality known in the Person of Jesus. He continues to do this today by the Spirit. When this happens all is touched with a sense of God's Presence. It may look the same, but it isn't. Every child of God through faith in Jesus knows what I speak of here. It's just that yesterday it was unusually palpable to me, or at least I sensed the reality of it. It certainly added a joy and charm to the day.

Later on I struggled over some anxiety issue, which I later overcame, but in so struggling I lost that sense of the Lord's Presence, even though he certainly was and always still is present with us. It is wonderful though, especially in company with another believer, to know something of the Lord's Presence with us, God with us in Jesus.

Maybe you would like to share something about this from your own life. Or any thoughts.