JimGillaspieColor He was surrounded by all the best doctors. His home contained all the finest possessions money could buy. But as he drew his final breaths, he mourned “I’m leaving home…I’m leaving home!” On the other side of town was an old woman in an old shack. No doctor stood at her side. Her home contained only the barest of essentials. But as she took her final breaths, she whispered “I’m going home…I’m going home!”
Where is your home? James reminds us that life is brief: “…For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (James 4:14). The Hebrew writer reminds us that we are merely “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Heb 11:13). Peter pleaded: “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Pet 3:11). Yet which home are we more concerned about? If you want to try an interesting experiment, keep track for just one week of how much time you think about spiritual things versus how much time you think about temporal things. Put the totals side by side. Then think about how long eternity is compared to the few short years we spend on this earth. How does it compare? When your life comes to an end, will you be leaving home or going home?

 

       Jim Gillaspie is minister of the Kentucky Avenue Church of Christ, Louisville, KY