It's Time to Come Back Home.

Few words in the English language elicit such universally warm reactions are the word home. Home brings back memories. Home is comfortable and familiar. Home is where the heart is, even if the body isn’t. Home is where the love is.

Home is better than house. House is a structure, an inanimate object that can be beautiful in its own right. But the building doesn’t make itself a home. Only people can do that.
We just built a new house – God’s House – here at SHLC, for the worship and faith life of those called to follow Jesus. It is most certainly a beautiful house, as well as highly functional. Now we need to make it our home.

Jesus said, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my Word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23).  Jesus knows the beauty and meaning of home. He wants us to be at home with Him. He wants that presence, that relationship, to last long after the house is gone.

Paul says, “We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord…we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:6-9). The home we have with Jesus now, along with the brothers and sisters with whom we share it, is a foretaste of our heavenly home. Our eternal life in Christ doesn’t wait for death. Our life at home in Christ starts right here, right now.

God wants (and we need) our church building to be our Home and our church members to be our Family. We’ve done fairly well over the years at being the Family of God He’s called us to be, and making His Home warm and inviting. But COVID has taken a lot out of all of us, and has forced us into an ongoing separation from the people we love.

It’s time to come back home.

Here’s what I believe Jesus wants from us in 2021, to keep His Word and please Him as His Family, in His Home:

• Home is where you belong. Here you are welcomed. Here you are Family. We belong to Jesus and to one another. So come back home, and open the door for your brothers and sisters to come in, too.
• Home is where you are loved. You are loved by God, and you are loved by your Family. God’s love is unconditional and eternal, no matter how many times you’ve failed, nor how long you’ve been away. Come back home.
• Home is where you are fed. God provides the feast. His amazing, saving grace feeds our hearts, and His Word of truth feeds our minds. You have to eat to live and be strong, and that applies to your faith, too. Come home and get something to eat!
• Home is where you grow. In Christ’s Home, we grow in faith and love, which in turn grows us in our serving and sharing. Jesus never intends your faith to get dusty from lack of use. Come home and help us change lives.

 
I know we still have to stay safe, so it may be awhile before some of us can physically walk through the door again. We should pray that the new vaccines work (whether we like them or not), and that God blesses us with healing in 2021.
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Before, during and after that time, you know where to go, where to be. Welcome Home!