Home With God: Reflecting on Our Union in ChristSample

Beginning to end, the great hope of God’s people is that they will dwell with God forever.

God’s story, the whole story of Scripture, is a story of living at home with God. Beginning in a garden, ending in a city, the truth of the matter is this: from before the beginning to after the end, you and I were created to live with God the Father, in God the Son, by the power of God the Holy Spirit.

Waiting is hard. Whether we are waiting for a table or a test result, waiting challenges the illusion of control and it makes us uncomfortable. One of the reasons waiting concerns us is because when we have to wait, we are experiencing a shadow of a deeper waiting that is below the surface of everything all the time. Or at least it has been for a very long while.

The world and all that is within it is waiting for the end of the story. Creation is “groaning” for redemption. And we, along with the world, are caught up in the “in-between.” Theologians will refer to this as the space between the “already” and the “not yet.” We live between the first and second coming of Christ, between the inauguration of God’s kingdom and the consummation of it.

And for the Christian, this reality is intensified as we make our home with God in Christ Jesus. When we are united to Christ, we are now united to the one who has come and is coming again. In this union, we are now rooted in the Savior who has inaugurated God’s kingdom and who will consummate it at the appointed time. In Christ, all of a sudden we wake up to the true story of the world and we come to participate actively in this “space between” Christ’s first and last advent.

For us, the space between Christ’s first coming and second coming is the Christian life. Earlier generations of God’s people lived looking forward to the Messiah’s first appearance, we live looking backward and forward: He has come, He is coming again. But our waiting is unique because we actively wait in Christ Jesus. Our lives now are lived in Christ. And this changes everything.

The people of God in Christ will one day rule with Christ. When we are knit to Christ in union, we receive the world as our inheritance. Because it belongs to Christ, it now belongs to those who are in Him. And we are entrusted with His rule and reign over all things.

To be united to Christ Jesus, the end of the world, is to be assured of the certain reward that we will reign in Him and with Him forever and ever.

Thank you for reading!

This plan was adapted from Home With God by author Kyle Worley. Click here to learn more or purchase your copy.