I want to suggest to you today, that your eternal destiny depends on if you are abiding in God today. Now let’s be clear – we are saved by grace alone. Your abiding doesn’t save you or provide you any merit. Abiding can’t get you saved or add to your salvation but NOT abiding can get you lost.

Take a look at John 8:31-32. This is an invitation to abide but what happens if we reverse this promise? If you don’t abide you can’t be a disciple and you won’t know the truth and then you won’t be…. what? Free.

Same with John 15:4-7. Reverse it: if you don’t abide you won’t bear fruit; won’t be with God but be cast out. If you’re not abiding, God’s words won’t abide in you.

Again, he has saved us by his grace. However, if you don’t abide in him, and he’s not abiding in you, he can’t heal your brokenness; you won’t take his hand as he tries to lead you home.

We need God to take us by the hand because if he doesn’t, something else will. If you do a search in the Bible on the phrase “by the hand” you’ll notice that when people reject God’s hand and from his love he gives us what we want, someone else – someone evil and bent on our enslavement and destruction – takes God’s place.

If you want evidence of this, look to Jesus on the cross. Burdened with our sins that black out his connection to Eternal One-Father and Eternal One-Spirit he experiences the ultimate reversal of abiding; he is torn from the father’s hand, and he cries out in agony, totally God-forsaken. He bore that burden to demonstrate the love of God and the horror of sin – anti-abiding.

Jesus experienced the loss of abiding with the Father; he experienced being torn from the Father’s hand – so you don’t have to. So please, today, hear his plea – abide with him.

In the 15th chapter of John’s good news about Jesus Christ, Jesus repeatedly gives us the invitation to abide with him. Here’s one example:

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.

Read this verse over and over and just meditate on this invitation by Jesus.

If we can understand how deep and wide the love is between Eternal One-Father and Eternal One-Son, then can you appreciate the love they have for you – just as you are, right now?

What do you think your life would be like if you abided in that love?

Ever since the big mess began, our relationship with the Eternal One has been damaged and there is a distance between us.  Before, he was close with his people and he has been calling us back to a close relationship.

If you can, read this very short passage in Jeremiah 31.

The passage overflows with intimacy: covenant, I took them by the hand, I loved them as a husband loves his wife, write them on their hearts, I will be their God, and they will be my people, everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me, I will forgive…

One thing he says that catches me: “When I took them by the hand.” I don’t know about you, but I need all the help I can get. The picture of our God taking me by the hand and helping me really strikes a chord in my heart. Of course, this isn’t just in the Old Testament: Jesus was in the habit of taking people by the hand.

There was the little girl who died – he takes her by the hand and lifts her right up out of death. There is the blind man and the demon-possessed boy. In both cases, Jesus takes them by the hand healing and delivering them. For me, this closeness, this walking together that the Bible pictures, is brought together in one word that Jesus used several times – Abide.

Even though our home today is a twisted, selfish, mess, the good news is God didn’t abandon us to the mess. He has a plan to restore our home and has revealed that to us:

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 bride beautifully dressed for her husband. Revelation 21:1-5, NLT

God’s home restoration is only half the story. The other half is our restoration – the healing that we desperately need. One of the most important qualities God needs to heal is our ability and desire for intimacy with him.

In the beginning, there was Eden – heaven on earth. It was good and very good. We were created for this home.  And then everything went bad.  Where there was once harmony, trust, closeness there was now a twisted, selfish, mess and coming in at stage right – death.

The good news: God didn’t abandon us to the mess; he has been actively working to rescue us and bring us back home. This is what we have to look forward to…

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 bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.”  Revelation 21:1-5, NLT

Do you like to go on journeys? Vacations, business, or simply to go home?

You probably do some preparing and planning for your trip. Maybe you get some new clothes (or maybe you exercise to fit into certain clothes). Maybe you make reservations, purchase tickets, and make sure your passport is up to date.

In the Bible, we see a journey. In Hebrews 11 we are told that, “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

Like Abraham, we are broken people living in a broken world but by faith we are on a Journey Home.

What if we prepared for that home the same way we prepared for our earthly vacations? The planning, the preparation, the attitude of expectation and excitement… What would that look and sound like? What difference would it make in our lives today? Is there anything we need to be doing now; things that we can’t put off until later?