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Longing for the Here and There

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Colossians 1:3-5 (ESV)

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel,

Thankful to Spurgeon for bringing this passage back to mind this morning. We are reminded here that one of the great motivations for us as believers is the hope laid up for us in heaven. Often we don't think of the eternal life we have with God in heaven because we are so deeply invested here. The problem with being so deeply invested here is that we will suffer from shortsightedness. Everything must be accomplished here and we find ourselves not needing or desiring the there of heaven. So our hearts are called by the gospel to desire the there of heaven more than we want the here. Why? What is the hope laid up for us in heaven? Because it is only there that we can fully be with Jesus.

If we are fully invested in Jesus we will want to be where he is. Ultimately that will only be the case in our eternal home. So our call while we are here is is to invest our heart there. To lay up our hope more fully in heaven. Specifically with Jesus where He is. And oddly enough, we will find that in the longing for and investing our hearts there, we will have perspective, motivation, and joy here. Our joy in Christ and all he has provided us and will provide us being rightly related to God changes all things here. So let you heart be wrapped up in Christ where He is, and in so doing we will have a heart to do His work here.

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