Home?

I can't get our new home out of my mind.  I am constantly placing furniture, wondering what to change, then researching how to change them.  Where will I go and drink my coffee in the mornings, which for me is the best time of the day?  What will Katie think?  She has such a great eye for houses.  What will the rest of the family think about it?  My mind is consumed.  

It made me stop and think about some things.  Just how often do I think of my eternal home?  Really, not very often.  I will be there for a very long time, if you can even call it time. Since my limited mind can not wrap itself around a "time" without "time" I will still refer to it as "time".  Christ said He is going to go ahead of us and prepare the way to our eternal home. Paul said we can build it with gold and precious stones, or the alternative could be what we use in the construction could be burned up.  

I have looked at quite a few houses this last week.  Some of them needed to be burned down and started again, at least just part of the house, to get rid of the parts that were not constructed well, not usable, not aesthetically pleasing, or so out of date that no one wanted to use them anymore.  There seems to be a time in the last century when you look at houses built in the 50's or 60's and say they are now out of date.  But, if you go into an old farm house or an antebellum home, they aren't out of date they are antique and beautiful.  Why is that?  The antique homes are older than the others.  Which would you rather be an antique house with lots of memories and character or an out of date house that is just that, out of date?  The antique one makes you feel warm, inviting, and brings back feelings, mental and emotional. The other makes you want to run the other way.  If I think about my life as an old house, I would much rather be warm, inviting, with lots of memories oozing from my rafters, and the atmosphere of the house.  My spiritual house cannot just have memories.  It has to have active, alive, and vibrant happenings now.  It has to have repairs (constantly), and as things "die" in it, they must be replaced by life.  Sanctification, the process of the Christian life as we become more and more like Christ, is a process, it is a marathon, not a sprint.  

I am building a much more important house now, and it will count for eternity, forever.  How am I building it?  With precious gems like; putting God's priorities above my own, loving God's people, loving His Word, etc.....

Building for forever.............Lynn