OUR HEAVENLY HOME

James Hewett tells the story of a sailor shipwrecked on a South Sea Island.  He was seized by the natives, carried to the village, and set on a crude throne.  He soon learned that it was their custom each year to make one man a king -- for a year.  He liked this, until he discovered that each year each king was banished to an island where he starved to death.  The sailor didn't like that, but he was smart and he was king.  So he put his carpenters to work making boats, his farmers to work transplanting fruit trees and crops, and his masons to work building houses.  When his reign was over, he was banished, not to a barren island, but to an island of abundance.  This sailor was wise.  He learned to live for the future, not merely the present.

Foolishly, some people are so busy of taking care of their earthly homes they neglect their heavenly dwelling place.  Paul taught that while the deeds we perform now don't purchase a place in heaven, they do supply spiritual "building materials" for our heavenly homes.  What will your mansion look like?  "For no one can lay any other foundation than the one we already have -- Jesus Christ.  Now anyone who builds on that foundation may use gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay or straw.  But there is going to come a time of testing at the judgment day to see what kind of work each builder has done.  Everyone's work will be put through the fire to see whether or not it keeps its value" (1 Corinthians 3:11-13, NLT).

-- Lenya Heitzig and Penny Pierce Rose in Pathway to God's Treasure: Ephesians

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