Not your final destination

 Not Your Final Destination

 

Even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith — for he was like a foreigner, living in tents. And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise. Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.

HEBREWS 11.9-10

 

Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.

1 PETER 2.11

 

Imagine getting a letter telling you that you have been given the country of Japan. You hop on the next plane and go there, and you spend the rest of your life living there in a campervan. Your kids live in the camper next door, and their kids live in the next campervan over. You move from place to place, with no home, no citizenship, and no rights — always as an outsider.

This is what it was like for Abraham living in the land of Canaan that God had promised him. We might expect that if God had promised Abraham a new country he would have made sure Abraham felt at home there. But it wasn’t like that. Instead, Abraham made his home in the Promised Land “like a foreigner.” He lived in tents, as did his son and his son’s son. In fact, the only land Abraham ever owned in Canaan was the cave in which he buried his wife, Sarah.

But Abraham didn’t want to make himself at home there anyway. He was “looking forward to a city with eternal foundations.” Evidently, Abraham’s greatest hopes and dreams for a homeland were invested not in earthly Canaan but in his heavenly homeland, where there would be no more moving from place to place in temporary lodging. He would finally be home. Peter says we should live this way too — not putting down our roots too deep here on this earth, because our true focus is on our eternal home in heaven.