- Morning Devotional
- September 27, 2003
-
"The Perfect City"
- by Don Emmitte
I love to read the headlines
on my Internet browser’s home page. There are always so many interesting links
to different sites and articles. One of them this morning was “Find the
Perfect City.” When I clicked on it, it linked me to a site where I could fill
in some search criteria and match my desires with the “perfect city.” Each
of the following were used as a basis to make the choice: population, school
rating, cost of living index, average home price, income tax rate, future job
growth, number of sunny days, air quality, water quality, and violent crime. All
of those are important. My favorite is the number of sunny days.
The more I began to think
about this site, the more I was reminded of the following passage of Scripture
and my ultimate home:
Then
I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had
disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new
Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a beautiful bride prepared
for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, "Look, the
home of God is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be
his people. God himself will be with them. He will remove all of their sorrows,
and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world
and its evils are gone forever." And the one sitting on the throne said,
"Look, I am making all things new!" And then he said to me,
"Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true." And he
also said, "It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega--the Beginning and
the End. To all who are thirsty I will give the springs of the water of life
without charge! All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I
will be their God, and they will be my children.
(Revelation 21:1-7 NLT).
Now that’s the place I want
to live! And I can through faith in Christ. Perhaps you may be thinking
“that’s good, but what about now?” John Bradford, a great preacher from
the sixteenth century, said, “Appreciation of heaven is frequently highest
among those nearing death. Suffering both increases our desire for heaven and
prepares us for it.” Bradford, less than five months before his fiery
departure from life for preaching the gospel in violent times, wrote to a friend
of the glories of heaven he anticipated:
I
am assured that though I want here, I have riches there; though I hunger here, I
shall have fullness there; though I faint here, I shall be refreshed there; and
though I be accounted here as a dead man, I shall there live in perpetual glory.
In
1991 a Gallup poll showed that 78 percent of Americans expect to go to heaven
when they die. However, many of them hardly ever pray, read the Bible, or attend
church. They admit that they live to please themselves instead of God. I wonder
why these people would want to go to heaven. I hope you are not in that
category. What city do you want to live in?