New City Reality
When traveling from one city to another, it’s neat to watch the one you left behind fade in the distance. The lights and sounds and busyness that were once so bright and so loud to your senses gradually fade away until you no longer see even a twinkle of it. But then as you look ahead to the new city, a reversal happens. The city lights at first look like a far away star in the universe. They are barely seen in the distance. But the closer you get to the new destination, the greater clarity you gain. The faint lights get brighter. The sounds get louder. The reality of it all becomes more obvious. The city you could only imagine before, is now clear and real.
I compare it to the journey we are on with God. The ‘City’ we left behind that once used to fascinate us, mesmerize us, and fill our senses, start to lose their luster. What used to attract our attention becomes increasingly more dim and less appealing, until we finally don’t even notice it anymore. It has lost all glimmer to us. This world and its system becomes the City we left behind and Heaven becomes the New City we are headed toward. The lights of this New City become brighter to us even as we live here on earth, and we see the Kingdom of God with greater clarity everyday.
As a result then, we become more concerned with what’s happening in the New City where we are citizens of, than we are with the agenda of the Old City we left.
And YET -
though we know the Old City is not our home, we do not live in it in vain. Instead, we live with Purpose and our prayer becomes, “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (or in the Old City as it is in the New City). God gives us hearts of compassion and eyes to see the Homeless all around us - those that do not know that they, too, are welcome in the New City and can find a Home there. We reach out our hands and say, “Come, meet the One who made you, loves you. Come. Let me introduce you to the King of the New City.” And we take as many as we can with us.
I compare it to the journey we are on with God. The ‘City’ we left behind that once used to fascinate us, mesmerize us, and fill our senses, start to lose their luster. What used to attract our attention becomes increasingly more dim and less appealing, until we finally don’t even notice it anymore. It has lost all glimmer to us. This world and its system becomes the City we left behind and Heaven becomes the New City we are headed toward. The lights of this New City become brighter to us even as we live here on earth, and we see the Kingdom of God with greater clarity everyday.
As a result then, we become more concerned with what’s happening in the New City where we are citizens of, than we are with the agenda of the Old City we left.
And YET -
though we know the Old City is not our home, we do not live in it in vain. Instead, we live with Purpose and our prayer becomes, “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (or in the Old City as it is in the New City). God gives us hearts of compassion and eyes to see the Homeless all around us - those that do not know that they, too, are welcome in the New City and can find a Home there. We reach out our hands and say, “Come, meet the One who made you, loves you. Come. Let me introduce you to the King of the New City.” And we take as many as we can with us.
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