While reading in Hebrews today I came across this short verse. "For here we do not have an enduring city; instead, we seek the one to come." [Heb 12:14]
It is easy to get totally focused on life in the here and now. It is easy to get sidetracked by things that will not matter in eternity. See what the writer of Hebrews writes. Here we do not have an enduring city. The word "enduring" means abiding, continuing, remaining or lasting. Everything about life on planet earth is temporary. Relationships are temporary. Parents die. Children die. Grandparents die. If that does not happen we often move away from dear friends. The bond may remain close but time spent together can be rare. People date and break up. Some marriages end in divorce. One way or another relationships down here come to an end. We are unsure as to the nature of those relationships in heaven but down here they do not last.
The stuff we work so hard for and give our lives and money to purchase do not last either. Right down the street from me a family is building a new house. Should life continue as we know it for years to come you might come across that same house a hundred or one hundred and twenty years from now and the house be in shambles through years of neglect. I see houses crumbling and falling all the time. Worse, a natural disaster could strike leveling the house and all houses surrounding it. Though we call them homes they do not always remain. We have friends who live back in east Texas who bought a home and spent months remodeling it. One day a fire started and burned all their hard work to the ground.
If our homes do not wear down how many times have you left a house due to a move. Twice we have bought a house and twice we have had to leave them behind. I loved both homes and would take either of them again but we do not live in those cities anymore. Homes down here are temporary. As I write this another group of seniors are about to graduate. Some will be moving out of dorms and apartments as they graduate from college and prepare to enter the work force. Others are preparing to move from their childhood homes as they prepare to go off to college. Either way were they have been residing is about to change.
Governments rise and they fall. Communities are established and some dry up. Things down here are temporary. We spend a life accumulating stuff and after we are gone our children fight over all of it. Heirlooms are passed down from generation to generation. While we make think we possess them permanently sooner or later we release them to others either voluntarily or others seize them when we are gone.
Cities do not always remain. Why put all of our effort into a temporary city that cannot last. There is a lasting city. The city of God. A city of purity and the presence of God. There is a city of eternity. It will endure. It will never crumble. Today it does me good to think about that city because my lot down here has not been an easy one. There have been numerous trials and heartaches. I look forward to the city where there will be no more death, no more mourning, no more pain, and where all tears will be wiped from our eyes. [Rev 21:4]
Down here one may work for a lifetime to build something only to have someone else take it over. One day, should the Lord delay in coming again, somebody else will serve as pastor of Faith Community Church. I will not live forever. I have served other flocks and other pastors have taken my place and are dearly beloved among the congregations. People come and go. Life goes on without us.
The labor we do down here for the Lord will remain in eternity. Our lives and labor matter in eternity. So let this serve as a wake up call. Re-prioritize. Down here we do not have an enduring city. Let us turn our attention to the one that will last forever.
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