Looking For A New Home

LOOKING FOR A NEW HOME

By Pastor Jim May

Right now the real estate market in our area is really booming. It’s a seller’s market because there are thousands of people who don’t have a home and are looking for just about anything that will put a roof over their heads and give them a place that they call their own. If you ever plan to sell, and to buy a better home, now is your perfect chance, if you are willing to do what some other people are doing.

I know of several people who are selling their homes at higher prices than what their homes are appraised for. Their plan is to sell for a high cost, move out of the area for a year or two, into a cheaper home than they have now, save the equity they get from the sale, and then come back and buy a bigger, better and nicer home than they have now when the market changes. It’s not a bad plan if you have the freedom to follow through with that plan.

One problem with this plan is that we do not know what the future holds for the real estate market. It all sounds good for now, but what if another storm or some other natural disaster strikes, there is no doubt that their plans will vanish into smoke if that happens.

There is something to think about in the old saying, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry”. We don’t know what the future holds, at least not in detail.

Another problem, and a more important question would be, is God in the plan for us to sell out and look for something better down the road? As Christians, we should take advantage of every opportunity to better ourselves, but only if God is in it. If God has spoken to you to “play the real estate game”, then its not a gamble for God will see it through and you will win in the end. If you step out in your own will, without God’s stamp of approval, then you are taking a terrible gamble that may cost you dearly in the end.

As for me, I have not heard God say to move on. I have not heard the Holy Spirit speaking to me, “sell high, and buy low”. All I hear from the Lord is stay faithful and work where I have put you. Fulfill the call in your life and let me take care of everything else.” That’s the path I choose to follow. Until God says otherwise, my only good course of action is to stay right where I am and do my best to pastor this church.

We don’t always know exactly which steps to take in life, but what we do know, as Children of God who have read and studied the Word of God, is that we have only seen the beginning of woes that are coming upon this old world.

More than once in God’s Word we are told that calamities are coming upon this world, and that those calamities will increase in intensity, frequency and duration, as we draw closer to the Second Coming of Christ. Though we, who love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and bear His mark of salvation, are not appointed or destined to suffer through the worst of these calamities, it does not mean that we won’t experience the suffering that all men will face prior to the rapture of the church and the time of tribulation when the wrath of God will poured out without measure.

Jesus warned us that these days would come in Matthew 24:7 and in Mark 13:8 when He warned, "For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows." These words ring true today as never before. It’s as though we are reading the headlines of our daily newspaper.

In the US there are hurricanes, forest fires, floods, tornadoes and economic woes like our nation has never faced before. History shows that the number of killer quakes remained fairly constant until the 1950s - averaging between two to four per decade. Then, in the 1950s, there were nine. In the 1960s, there were 13. In the 1970s, there were 51. In the 1980s, there were 86. From 1990’s there were more than 150. And so far, in the first 5 years of this decade, there have been at least 39 major earthquakes, but some of them have caused more death and destruction than ever before.

Great earthquakes struck all around the Pacific rim causing 40’ to 90’ tidal waves to sweep over the coastal areas and scrub the land clean of all that man has created and built, taking many thousands of lives with it as the waters come in and then go out once again, and scientists tell us that this same region of the globe is primed right now for an even greater earthquake than the last one. It’s like a powder keg with a lighted fuse, waiting to blow. Just a few days ago, a powerful earthquake struck the lands of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, killing many more people. Yet all of these are only the beginning of sorrows. There is no doubt that there will be many more disasters to come, and they will grow more destructive and more deadly as the world marches to judgment.