Home: Where the Heart Is

"But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:20

"Home: Where the Heart Is" were the starting point for my prayer mind map this morning. With that at the center of my purple construction paper, I explored what home means to me. At first, I thought I would examine a couple different places that hold parts of my heart that make me feel at home and how God provides that sense of home in my life. I started off looking at heaven as my ultimate home and then ended up looking closely at the idea of the heart and how that reflects a home.

So many people get caught up in naming a physical place home, whether that be a certain city or a specific house. While it is nice to feel a connection to these places, isn't it nicer to know that heaven is our eternal home and that God sent His Holy Spirit to make His home in our hearts and that our hearts are always with us?

God assures us that His children will live with Him eternally. We should live with our focus on His coming kingdom. This is where the idea of the heart comes in. My life should be focused on God. When I open myself to Him, He fills me with His Holy Spirit; it dwells in me! Ephesians 3:17, my favorite verse, reflects this: "And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love." He will first grow roots in your heart and then grow you spiritually, blossoming the blessings in your life.

I have felt this tremendously in my life. The more I trust God, the more freedom He has to rule my life, and the more freedom I have. After I started letting God into my heart, He began to fill it. He purifies our hearts and writes His Word upon them. With our homes built upon this in our hearts, we can reflect God in our lives. The seeds of God's love in our hearts makes us grow as Christians. We are moved to delve deeper into our bibles and our relationships with God.

Once built, this foundation provides the basis for our lives following God and basking in His goodness. With God filling our hearts and us loving Him with all our hearts, we can start to see all the blessings it brings to fruition. God consistently brings joy to my heart. Somehow, though I never feel unjoyful, it seems as though the joy renews on a regular basis. Proverbs 17:22 even reminds us that "A cheerful heart is good medicine." When we feel joyful, that cheer spreads. It also makes it that much easier for us to reach out to others in love.

Ultimately our home is in heaven where we will reside with God eternally. In the meantime, His Holy Spirit makes His home in our hearts; God dwells in us. We use this to continually grow in Him and to share His blessings upon us. We can let people not only into our physical homes to show our love but into our hearts as well to share God's love in us.

"For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6