1 - My Home Series

1 - THEY WILL BE MY HOME = “I WILL LIVE AND WALK AMONG THEM”

2 Corinthians? ?6?:?14?-?18? ?NIV??

14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

“I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” And, “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.””

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May God add a blessing to the reading of His Word.

Thanks be to God!

I worked at TimberLee Christian Center, a huge Christian camp in East Troy, WI in the summer of 1990. There were a few international students who were working there that summer as well and one of the girls was from Germany. When she prayed, she couldn’t speak English very well, so she would just pray in German. I understood Danke, Jesus. One evening she was fixated on an English word and shared with how the sound of the word also communicated to her the actual feeling of the word. And she kept saying it over and over again and it made her smile. Do you want to know what the word was? HOME.

How does the word HOME make you feel? Perhaps you have a favorite out-fit you like to be comfortable in - pair of warm slippers, a Snuggie, fireplace, smell of pie or wassail. HOME. How many of you would say you have good memories of that word, HOME?

John 14:23 Jesus said,, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our HOME with them.

When Jesus looks at your heart, does he say, Home. Home. Home.

When I was kid one of my favorite things to do was to spend the night at a friend’s HOME. Sometimes they were friends of believing parents and sometimes they weren’t. The most favorite thing to do was on a Sunday, to go over to my friend’s house after church, spend the day with him. And since we had Sunday evening church, I would come back with his family and then ride back home with mine. It was a win-win situation because it got me to church on Sunday nights.

It was at my friend’s house that I learned that not all Christian families were the same. I am not sure why I thought that they were. I knew my relatives homes were different than my family mostly because they didn’t go to church, but another church family? Surely it should be the same, right?

I have this distinct memory of discovering a cruel invention and what they must have served in prisons camps something called “Instant mashed potatoes.” You know how young people can be honest - rude, but honest? We all sat together at their table –like we did at home, had a table spread for Sunday dinner, like we did, and had prayer and then passed the bowls and platters of food. OH, THIS family allowed you to have soda pop with their Sunday dinner! That was an abomination in my home. But as they passed the meat, and veggies,, and rolls, gravy, I took a bite of what was supposed to be mashed potatoes and once I savored and swallowed it– I was quite rude–I said, WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE MASHED POTATOES? There was a lot of clamor until the mom said, It must be because they are instant. I said, “What do you mean, “instant?” My friend said, They are from a box. I thought he was lying and argued with him until he brought me over the red box of instant mashed potatoes, and right then and there I learned something: Not all families are the same. Some are fake. Some make fake mashed potatoes that tasted like old communion wafers and this family learned to like them. I guess if that’s all you ever knew and you put a lot of good gravy on it and I mean a lot of good gravy. TO me, it just felt like compromise.

But I wouldn’t have learned about other families being different than my own, nor what set my family apart–of the things I liked about my family, and things I liked about other families that I would bring into my own family and HOME some day.