Overcome! Devotions From Time Of GraceSample

Overcome! Eternal Belonging

There aren’t many experiences in life worse than being excluded, shut out from a group to which you would like to belong. Middle-school girls learn quickly how much pain they can inflict on another girl by refusing to let her into their circle. Gangs have an eternal allure to young men who desperately want to be part of something big.

Here’s a concept--God knows your name and face and life, and he wants you, yes you, to be not just an extra in a heaven crowd scene but an important part of his celestial family. He wants you not on the fringes but right in the center of things: “Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name” (Revelation 3:12).

You may or may not be into tattoos in this life--do you have any ink? But figuratively speaking, God is going to put his everlasting claim on you by “writing” his name on you. Imagine--he desires an everlasting relationship with you, the ultimate belonging.

Heaven is even better than being put back into the Garden of Eden, where you would have to endure the serpent’s temptations all over again. When we arrive in heaven, we are there to stay!