July 02, 2025 | Be God's Family
A Better Country
Scripture: Hebrews 11:13-16(NIV)
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Devotional
On March 26, 1979, I was with my college friends watching Larry Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores face Magic Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans in the NCAA Championship game. All of us watching the game were Hoosiers, not just by attending IU but by birth in our native state. All of us were rooting for Indiana State and Larry Bird as fellow Hoosiers. Except for that one guy, who was rooting for the Spartans. His loyalty was more to the Big 10 than to the state where he lived. After arguing with him, in exasperation I asked, “Do you live in the Big 10?”
Everyone seeks a place to call “home,” as this passage states, “a country of their own.”
The book of Hebrews is a case study in how God’s New Covenant, secured by the blood of Jesus, is better than the old covenant. In Hebrews 4, we are told Jesus is the great High Priest, better than the priests of Mosaic Law. In Hebrews 8, we are told that our earthly attempts are poor imitations of Jesus’ ministry. In Hebrews 10, Jesus’s sacrifice is superior to the Mosaic sacrifices.
Another aspect of the New Covenant involves the “Promised Land.” No less than 19 times in the Old Testament, the people of Israel were promised a land “flowing with milk and honey.” But that land was a mere shadow of the Kingdom of Heaven promised in the New Covenant. The ancient Hebrews had to fight endless wars to gain, keep, and ultimately lose their Promised Land. We don’t have to fight for the promise of a better country. It is given to us by Jesus’ sacrifice and gained by our faith in Him and acceptance of his sovereignty.
Our citizenship in this “better country” is already assured. In John 18:36, Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” In Philippians 3:20-21, Paul wrote, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”
We don’t have to live in the Big 10. We do still live on this earth for now. But Jesus cautioned us that our time here on earth is not where we should seek a sense of “home.” “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth…[b]ut store up for yourselves treasures in heaven….” (Matthew 6:19-20)
Where are you storing your treasures?
Poem
The Journey Forward
Psalm 125
Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever.
Psalm 125:1
I will trust in God, my LORD
His promises secure
I’ll not be shaken from this faith
E’en foreign lands appear
And as I journey as God leads
Held faithful through the years
I’ll not look back on comfort’s days
With salty longing tears
But with my eyes focused ahead
Toward Zion I will go
Trusting my Guide, His faithfulness
Is all that I must know
