Life, At Best, Is Transitory
by Bill Brant on Dec.28, 2009, under Hope
“Must, must, must – all of us get in our minds that this world is not our home, and that life, at best, is transitory.”
The email from a friend of forty years was prompted by his just finding out that another long time friend was diagnosed with cancer and the future was clouded at best. Things change when we realize our time is short. Oh, I know we cavalierly say that we’re all terminal, it’s just a matter of when we die not if. Yet, bravado usually is short lived when the real end is near.
As believers in an Almighty God we mentally, sometimes verbally, and even on rare occasions orally acknowledge the faith we confidently hope to see His face in heaven as promised in Revelation 22:4.
Yet we live our lives as if our earthly existence is the only place we’ll ever live. We are supposed to be in the world but not of the world. As followers of the Messiah, we are to be different, with our focus on heaven. Not on a car, a job, or a house in the “good” neighborhood.
I am reminded of the words Albert Brumley penned in 1937:
This world is not my home, I’m just passing through.
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door
And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.
The images of being pilgrims, strangers, wanderers in this world are in both the Old and New Testaments. That the journey is not complete until we are with Jehovah Raffa as described in Revelation 21. So what about the here and now? How do we exist on this side of Heaven? The words of Jesus reverberate through the centuries: “I have given them Your Word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.” John 17: 14-15.
It seems most opportune that as a new year begins, we must recalibrate our perspectives and live as if we truly believe that “life, at best, is transitory” and being with God is where we want to live.
So how do we recalibrate? How do you prepare to be a pilgrim in a land that is not your home? What does that really mean? Yeah I got the questions, it’s the answers that keep me searching. Let me know what you think.
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We recalibrate ourselves by making sure the presence of the Holy Spirit is felt in us. We must ensure that we are spiritually alert. We should embrace the law of the life in Spirit in Christ Jesus which has set us free from the law of sin and death. We should not be carnally minded so as to avoid friendship of the world. As we are therefore having no more condemnation in the world as Christ has made us free. (Rom.8:1-9) We should remember to kiss the Son and take pleasure in the stone as well as the dust therefore, expecting the son to pity us as the Father pities his children. We should allow the spirit which is upon us and the word in our mouth not to depart even from us to our children and children’s children forever (Isa.59:22).