Most Christians have done just that; they made themselves at home in this fallen and falling world. We have taken a bite out of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, just like our first parents. Instead of heeding warnings that our life is a vapor, here today, gone tomorrow. We have put away our tents and camps to no longer take the pilgrimage with Abraham, looking for a better city to come, the New Jerusalem. We instead settle where we are and look to reform what we have.
God gives us a glimpse of what He has for the humble, and the devil comes right away to give us a glimpse of what we can have in a micro-moment. It is often the same vision but a quicker timeline because we are without patience and want it now. Instead of worshipping God through serving Him only, we bow down in front of the god of this world and serve ourselves.
So, we Christians have made this world our home. We reform, refurbish, and renovate. And in doing so, we forget we are in this world but not of it. Instead of seeking God for His will to be done, we plan alongside the world for our will to be done over the seventy or eighty years we believe we have. We are not seeking God to redeem our time but living our time as if we have all the time in the world. We don't need to redeem the time if God doesn't have a definite time to return. There is a set time even if there is a slight delay.
Don't make yourself at home in this world. Israel did that in the land of Egypt and became slaves. We, too, have become slaves in this world because we have made it our home. We, too, are working long hours, and some of us are providing our straw to make the quota of credit card interest and inflation. We enjoy the benefits of Egypt but hate the leadership.
Don't make yourself at home in this world, or you will become comfortably numb. Israel, too, became comfortably numb in Egypt. They had all the veggies and potted meat they wanted; they didn't like the ones in charge, so they cried out for deliverance. But God knew that the cry was fleshly and not from the heart. They were at home in Egypt, like many people in this world. And like many USA citizens who are also Christians, they are not ready to leave for the promises of God.
But here is the problem for those who have made this world their home: they aren't ready to leave. They have more life to live. They have dreams unfulfilled. Desires unrealized. What could we want more in this life than reconciliation between heaven and earth? Why would we want to hold off on the reconciliation of heaven and earth a little longer? To get married? To see your children graduate college with honors and married with children? To retire and travel the USA or Europe in an RV? Are any of these things going to be a greater delight than the least experienced in the kingdom of God?
Christians may answer no, but the truth lies in what we hunger and thirst for daily. As a good soldier of Jesus and His kingdom, I don't like war but know it is necessary to bring peace. Good news is only good in light of the bad news for most people. I am looking for the end of all things, not just my end on earth. I am looking for total redemption and not another reformation. This world is incorrigible. There are things I like to see and experience in this lifetime, but not at the expense of reducing the treasures I am to store up in the kingdom of God. The most extraordinary experience in this world will not match the least experience in the kingdom of God. So why make myself at home in this world?
If you have made yourself home in this world or this nation, you are shaken about now. What is not built on the rock of Jesus is not sustainable when God shakes this world one more time. What God has not planted is being plucked up. God sent Moses into Egypt to shake things up before He could deliver the Hebrews. Why? Because the Hebrews had made themselves at home. They wanted change, but not the kind of change that God desires. They wanted reformation but hadn't been internally reformed to the kingdom of God. They were conformed to the same comforts and complaints as everyone else in Egypt. You see their poor example through the next forty years of their journey. We want to go back home! We don't like this change.
But after the shaking of Egypt, not only were the Hebrews ready to leave, but so were many Egyptians and other ethnics. And so, it is today as well. People don't evolve. We must not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of our minds to the ways of God. God shook Egypt and the Hebrews. Now, God is shaking the kingdoms of this world once again.
I have been saying for over a decade now that something has to happen here in the USA, and not for our best life now. God has been calling home the Jews since 1917 with the Balfour Declaration. Many had made themselves home in the nation they were dispersed by God. They weren't ready to leave. Then Hitler and the Nazis came to power, intending to wipe out the Jewish race in Germany and worldwide. How many Jewish lives would have been spared if they hadn't made Germany their home but left when the promised land reopened in 1917? God punished the Nazis for their evil agenda and deeds. God didn't call the Nazis to do what they did any more than Pharoh did to the Hebrews. But after the experience of WW2. Jews were much more willing to return to the place God had prepared for them.
We, as Christians, are also slow to return to a God and realize that we, too, have been given a promised land of milk and honey. And many Christians will find they, too, were slow to respond to the voice of God and unprepared for His coming. The unprepared will face another holocaust, a Christian holocaust. They made themselves at home in this world and will be evicted from this world. It is much better to depart in the darkness of the world with Jesus than wait for another day of comfortably numb living under tyranny.
Since Israel became a nation in 1948, Jews from every nation have returned to their promised land except for the Jews in the USA. The USA is home to seven million plus Jews in 2022. Four thousand Jews immigrated from the USA to Israel in 2021—the highest since 1973. Worldwide immigration of Jews to their homeland is as follows: 2019- 34,000, 2020 – 19,713, 2021 – 25,497, 2022 – 74,714. The clarion call is getting louder, but so is the shaking. There is only one place God has promised to protect the Jews.
I am pro-Jew. Salvation is of the Jews, so says Jesus, my Savoir and Lord, a Jew. I have been adopted into the Jewish commonwealth and will rule with my Jewish brothers from Jerusalem for a thousand years as all the gentile nations will bring offerings and bow a knee to our King and Messiah, Jesus.
I look forward to that day when Jew and Gentile are one new man in Christ. We have a foretaste of that now, with many Jews coming to Jesus.
My concern is what is going to cause the American Jews to vacate the USA to go back to their homeland. God is calling them back home now and has since 1917. It is a promise that God gave the Jews that He would bring them home from where He dispersed them and protect them from their enemies. And it will be fulfilled.
Israel's Jubilee, which happens every 50 years in the Old Testament, seems to have restarted in 1917 with the Belfour Declaration. Israel became a nation in 1948, not a Jubilee year, but still significant. WW2 ended in 1945, the end of a seven-year cycle that led to another three-year exodus to the promised land, resulting in Israel becoming a nation again in 1948. God loves Israel, but there is even a greater love for Jerusalem. Fifty years later, from 1917 to 1967, Jerusalem was once again in the hands of the Jews.
Add another fifty years to 1967, and you get 2017; the United States, along with other nations following, recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The next Jubilee won't happen until 2067, forty-three years from now. But that doesn't mean Jesus won't return until then. Jesus can return anytime before then, and I live as if He will by not making myself at home in this world.
Is the USA going to experience a shaking like Egypt? So that the Jews want to go home, and the Christians are looking up for their full redemption?
Most Christians have made themselves at home in this world and this nation. What will God have to allow to get His bride ready for Jesus? Too many Christians are not prepared to leave for the promised land. They are veggie out in front of the idle, entertainment. They are hoping for another reformation to take place. But I'm saying this world is too worn out for another reformation. It is near time to leave so this world can be cleansed by God with fire for our return to rule alongside the Lord of lords and King of kings.
If you are ready to live light and stop making this world your home, then I have this to say to prepare you. Put on the whole armor of God because we are about to face off with some giants of the land that are inclined to keep Christians from seeing and inheriting their true home and promised land. Blessed are the humble, for they shall inherit this world one day. Heaven isn't our home; it is a layover before we return to the earth, where the kingdoms of this world are subjected to Jesus as His inheritance. My begotten Son, ask Me of the nations, and I will give them to You. Psalms 2:7-8
Israel wasn't ready for the battle to go into the promised land, and neither was, at least, the Western church. Maybe Christians in North Korea, Iran, China, India, Afghanistan, and parts of Africa are ready and waiting for us to stand with them and after doing all to stand. But we in the West aren't prepared. We are to stand just like Israel did at Passover before their deliverance from Egypt. Today is not a time to make ourselves at home in this world. It is a time to stand and be ready. Jesus will return soon enough, but will we be ready?