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Scripture Reading: Philippians 3:15-4:1
Our citizenship is in heaven.
Philippians 3:20
What is the place you come home to? If you’ve been away on a trip—even if you’ve had a great time—it can feel good to get back home again, where you can unwind and settle into everyday routines. Home is where things are familiar: sights, sounds, and smells; neighbors, family, community; work, shopping, banking—and of course bills and laundry.
Do you see what I see in the familiarity of home? The Bible makes clear that Christ’s followers are in the world but not of the world. In today’s reading, Paul reminds us that our citizenship is in heaven. That’s where we will truly have the feeling of “being home.” Heaven is the place where God dwells and where we as believers will go after we die. But, in Jesus, heaven has come to earth. He taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). As we follow the pattern for a way of life Paul received from the Lord, we have an experience of heaven here on earth, and thus that “finally home” feeling.
Paul warns us not to put our minds “on earthly things.” God does not want us to feel “at home” where self-centered appetites and pleasures come first. Rather, we are called to live as people who pass along the love, forgiveness, compassion, and obedience received through Christ’s sacrifice. And one day we will be transformed to have bodies that will be like Christ’s. We’ll truly be home!
Prayer
Lord, teach us to do your will here on earth. Help us to live as you call us to, and to serve as faithfully as the angels in heaven. Amen.
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GET TODAY
Steven Koster’s letter of August 6 asked that we 1) tell you about ourselves, 2) how long we have received Today, 3) how we use Today, and 4) how Today could be improved.
1) We attend the Fresno CRC, where my wife is secretary. I’ve been retired as an Agricultural Chemist for nearly six years, but for the last five years I’ve been an instructor for Crossroad Bible Institute (at the first level).
2) We have received Today for many years either by mail or picked up at church, but I have no idea exactly when our subscription began.
3) We use our Today daily, then I send our old Today (minus the address label) or unused Todays left at church with each week’s CBI lesson.
4) You could make Today a little easier to send with CBI stuff if the regular print magazine were 1/4” shorter (or the CBI envelope were 1/4” taller). I send Today spread open at the middle pages in the CBI envelope to make a thinner, less lumpy packet. The USPS can demand another stamp if the envelope is thicker than 1/4”. Even with all the “stuff” that is sent to a prisoner student in a CBI envelope - with the Today sent open - the total thickness is under 1/4”, but I have to shave 1/4” off the bottom of the Today to do that.
I had a postal clerk refuse to accept a student’s envelope, until I added more postage because (at that time) I was sending a closed Today magazine with the other CBI stuff to my weekly student.
Sincerely, William Lewis