home home.

[5 minutes]

Headed home from the hospital after an 8-day stay. All praise to Jesus! So many miracles happened! As God does.

Now Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

Galatians 4:25-26, CSB

If you visit Jerusalem today, you will see a people who are the spiritual offspring of Hagar — born of the flesh, after the flesh. The Lord loves them and longs for them to open their eyes (2 Cor 3:14-15), but for now, they choose to wander the spiritual wasteland of blindness and deafness.

BUT THERE IS A HEAVENLY JERUSALEM (v26). That City will one day supplant the present one. It is spiritual and heavenly, populated by people who know and are known by the Lord Jesus Christ — whose names are written in heaven (Heb 12:23). Saved Jews and Gentiles. Every tribe and tongue. Righteous people, made perfect by the sacrifice of the Lamb, worshipping their King in reverence and awe.

the jerusalem above

Followers of Jesus Christ are looking for that City (Heb 11:16), not at all satisfied with this one. We are ascending — up, up, up — climbing ever upward until the day we top that final hill and behold the City of God spread out before our eyes: shining and beautiful, surrounded by a myriad of angels, all dressed out for the festival of the ages.

It took valleys and deserts to cross to get here (Psa 84:6), but there she is — a multi-faceted jewel, the eternal dwelling place of God our Father and Jesus our Brother. The Holy Spirit is its everlasting Light.

When we fix our eyes and affections on this “Jerusalem” instead, we forget that we have been set free and saved for another Country altogether. We turn to graven images and works of the flesh, practicing an artificial religion that promises some attachment to the heavenly — but all it does is detach us from our True Country.

We soon realize that lifeless religion, empty rituals, and sad attempts at tower-building are futile. So we settle. We reach for shiny things on the ground — in the dirt, in the mud — and pretend we are happy. But the heart is deceitful and wicked, and no amount of playing in the dirt will appease our empty souls.

Weren’t we once “children of promise” (v28)? Why are we in the pig sty rooting around for corn cobs when my Father’s House has fatted calves and wide open spaces? Why am I wearing a yoke of slavery when I’m meant for a robe of righteousness (Gal 5:1)? Why am I severing myself from Christ (Gal 5:4) when I’m supposed to be dancing in the House of God (Gal 5:13)?

When did I stop ascending and start descending? I was making progress. Who bewitched me (Gal 3:1)?

There is good news. In the present Jerusalem is a holy spot where the Christ of Glory became the Lamb of sacrifice. He was slain upon a Jerusalem tree by a Jerusalem mob, but was raised to life inside a Jerusalem tomb. He then ascended to the Heavenly Jerusalem and told us He is preparing a place for us.

Don’t forget your true homeland. The present “Jerusalem” is not your home. You are commanded to come out of it (Rev 18:4) and set your sights on the City whose builder and maker is God. Look away to the heavens, Child of God — there is nothing for you here. Your help comes from heaven (Psa 121:1-2). Your birth certificate is in heaven. The census of heaven has your name on it.

C. S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

He’s promised us a holiday at the sea. Pack your bags and get hoofing! The journey ahead won’t always be pleasant — at times it will be fraught with scaries and peril — but it is the only journey worth taking. Soon we’ll crest the last rise, and there She will be: the heavenly Jerusalem, spread out wide and wonderful, all dressed up for our arrival.

Just think of stepping on shore
and finding it heaven;
of touching a hand and finding it God’s;
of breathing new air and finding it celestial;
of waking up in Glory and finding it Home.

— “Finally Home,” Don Wyrtzen

taking it home

The hospital doctor came into my room this morning with good news: “I think I can confidently say that you are going home today.” It’s been a comedy of errors getting discharged, but as God does, He has a reason for everything. I’ve enjoyed my time with the doctors, nurses, and techs who have graciously cared for me. I’ve tried to shine Christ to each one — three asked for a copy of my book! — learning all their names and blessing each. For me, hospitalizations have become second business. First business is living Jesus in front of people who face death every day.

I came in with the onset of sepsis and infection spreading through my body. Multiple blood clots in my lower legs were also discovered — hello, Eliquis — contributing to my issues. The bottom line: I have been unwell since October. But I feel I’ve been gone over with a fine-tooth comb, and wherever problems surfaced, they have been addressed, one by one. I am so thankful for the hope of better health. And now I get to go home. Not home home. But home.

Home home is the one on my radar. This lower Jerusalem, for all its hardships and unpleasantries, has also afforded me quick gulps of Glory and glimpses of the land of our inheritance — if you squint hard enough.

On earth as it is in heaven…

Soon, Shahd will be here for my bed bath. Sandy will arrive and get me dressed and ready for the short trip home. Not home home. But for now, just home is good enough.

Selah, beloved.

grace down on one knee

[4 minutes]

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:4-7

I’d like to share something with you I heard this morning:

“Grace simply means that God moves toward us in love.”

It’s beautiful in its simplicity, isn’t it? Grace isn’t something we “catch” if we happen to be in the right place at the right time. Grace is God moving toward us — focused on us — His hands and heart brimming with love.

I will never forget a pastor’s conference I attended years ago where I was enthralled by one of the speakers — Joe Stowell, former president of Moody Bible College. As I waited in line to greet him and tell him what his sermon had meant to me that morning, people kept pressing in around me and standing over me. I was invisible, certain he couldn’t see me through the crowd. But then he bypassed everyone, came straight to my wheelchair, and went down on one knee to look me directly in the eye. He introduced himself and asked me about myself — and everything in his face and manner told me he meant it. He was entirely present. As far as either of us knew, there was nobody else in the room.


This is how God’s grace operates. He is always the initiator, finding us where we are, and He lowers himself so as to be reachable. Just as Jesus crossed the distance between Himself and a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years (John 5:5) — once God gets us in His sight, we can’t escape. We are His. And we want to be His.


Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 even though we were spiritually dead God already loved us. Against all odds, with everything stacked against us, God moved in and let us know we were His kind of people. He didn’t decide to love us only after we said yes to Jesus; He had already been moving toward us, setting His sights on us long before we turned toward Him. So how can we think that on our worst days — when we don’t feel our best, when we’ve blown it badly — God has stopped loving us? Impossible. Even at our most broken, on our darkest day, God was already moving in our direction, getting down on one knee, looking us straight in the eye, giving us His full attention — choosing us, singling us out, setting His affection upon us. His mercies never end; they are new every morning! (Lam 3:22, 23)

He sees us even when we feel invisible to Him.


Hagar knew a little something about invisibility and zero agency. Forced to run away, Abram and Sarai’s handmaid-turned-concubine escaped to the wilderness, driven there by Sarai’s jealousy and abuse (Gen 16:6). Alone and desperate, the Angel of the Lord (the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus) found Hagar in that desolate place and ministered His loving grace to her. Overwhelmed by the Almighty seeing her, Hagar gave the Lord a name no one had ever called Him before: El-roi. The God who sees (Gen. 16:13).

Thirty years have passed since that pastor’s conference, but I still remember when the man of God got down on his knee and engaged me. He saw me — picked me out of the crowd — and said, “What’s your name?”


I’m coming out of a season of great bodily sickness and one of the things I’ve been occupying my time with is memorizing scripture. One passage I’ve committed to memory is from Job 37:22–23: “Out of the north he comes, shrouded in a golden glow, awesome majesty surrounds him. The Almighty — we cannot reach him — he is exalted in power!” ‘We cannot reach Him’ sounds like a locked and double-bolted door, to loosely borrow a phrase from C. S. Lewis. We are too small, too insignificant, too hidden in our humanness to imagine He can see us. And yet — the way opens. The Red Sea parts. The curtain, torn from top to bottom. There He is, down on one knee, smiling warmly, eyes sparkling, and He says, “I saw you here. I’m Jesus, and your life’s about to change.”

Thanks so much for reading, friend.I pray this post opened a pathway into your heart today.

Selah, beloved.

easter means it won’t always be this way

[4 minutes, 685 words, 2 minute video]

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.

Revelation 21:4

My wife shared something beautiful with me some time ago that made me think of this passage. She said, “As time goes on, I’m able to feel less and less grief about Graham‘s passing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still there, but less so as the years go by.”

I thought deeply about what she said and told her she helped me see something I’d given so little thought to. At the end of time, when Christ comes and makes all things new, the pain and heartache of our earthly years will be erased. While we will surely remember each other, we won’t remember our sorrows and sadnesses.

“Pain will be no more.” Every grief, all our tears, and the hard sting of pain will be wiped clean in that New Day.

The grace of Sandy’s lessened grief is a foretaste of the new heavens and new earth. Whatever you’re going through, Easter reminds us it’s not always going to be this way.

The resurrection means we can look forward with hope to the day our suffering will be gone. But it even means that we can look forward with hope to the day our suffering will be glorious.

On the Day of the Lord – the day that God makes everything right, the day that everything sad comes untrue – on that day the same thing will happen to your own hurts and sadness. You will find that the worst things that have ever happened to you will in the end only enhance your eternal delight. On that day, all of it will be turned inside out and you will know joy beyond the walls of the world. The joy of your glory will be that much greater for every scar you bear.

– Timothy Keller, Jesus The King

Joni Eareckson Tada attended a convention during which a speaker invited the people to kneel and pray. Everyone did except, of course, Joni.

“With everyone kneeling, I certainly stood out. And I couldn’t stop the tears.” Her emotional moment wasn’t out of self-pity; she was crying at the sight of hundreds of people on their knees before God. For Joni, it was a preview of heaven!

Sitting there, I was reminded that in heaven I will be free to jump up, dance, kick, and do aerobics. And…. sometime before the guests are called to the banquet table at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, the first thing I plan to do on resurrected legs is to drop on grateful, glorified knees. I will quietly kneel at the feet of Jesus.

I was blessed to be interviewed for the video at the top of this post that was shown in this morning’s Easter services. Full disclosure: I felt a bit awkward sitting there watching it with everybody else! Plus, it’s not easy to see yourself up there on the big screen. Why didn’t I sit up straighter? Gracious me, I thought I was losing more weight than that! Wow, I’ve really gotten old. Aside from all my wood-hay-and-stubble vanity, I’m very pleased with how it came out.

Those opening words were so important for me to share, and I’m delighted they made the cut. Every morning I wake up, I tell Jesus two things: it’s my honor to do this for You, and please allow me to suffer well — in a way that brings You all the glory.

I don’t love paralysis, but I love Jesus. One day my eyes “will see the King in His beauty, and I will see a vast land…I will no longer see the barbarians…but I will see Jerusalem, a peaceful pasture, a tent that does not wander…for the Majestic One, our Lord will be there…and none there will say I am sick.” (Isaiah 33:17-24, CSB)

I’ll be easy to spot; you’ll find me at the feet of Jesus.

Selah, beloved. A blessed Easter to you.