#DailyDevotion We Have A Better City Coming

Heb. 13 ¹⁴You see, we don’t have a permanent city here but look for the one that’s coming. ¹⁵Through Jesus let us always bring to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of our lips, praising His name. ¹⁶And don’t forget to do good and to share; such sacrifices please God.

So this comes after being told to suffer with Jesus outside the camp. Suffering outside the camp is to be rejected by one’s people. It is to be excommunicated. It is to be rejected. So should be encouraged, having been rejected by the world that we don’t have a permanent city here. This is not our home. We are strangers here, aliens, and foreigners. Since this is the case, we need not form attachments to the things of this world.

Instead, our attachment is to the permanent city, the one that is coming, the New Jerusalem mentioned earlier in chapter eleven. We are looking forward to the place Jesus went to prepare for us to be with Him forever. (John 14) Revelation speaks of it in chapter 21, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, because the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. And there was no longer any sea. ²And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God in heaven, dressed as a bride, ready to meet her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne say: ‘Look! God’s home is among the people, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them. ⁴He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, and there will be no more grief or crying or pain, because the first things have passed away.’”

Through faith in Jesus and in Jesus’ name, we are then to bring our God a sacrifice of praise with our lips and praising His name. Our hymnals are good for this. They have plenty of hymns telling us and the world what our God has done for us in Christ Jesus. Praising God is more than saying hallelujah—that is an invitation to praise God. Praising God is telling what God has done for us, is doing for us and will do for us. Our praise covers God creating everything, creating us, promising to redeem us, making a plan through Abraham and his descendants, culminating in the promised seed Jesus Christ. It covers sending the Holy Spirit who calls men to share the good news and administering the sacraments so we may come to faith and receive the salvation He has prepared for us.

Though we are saved only by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, such faith calls us to do good to everyone, especially those of the household of faith. We are not called to sit on our hands but to be diligent in good works. Those would be the positive aspects of keeping the commandments, preserving life, promoting chastity and fidelity, providing for others, and upholding the truth. Since we know the great rewards God has planned for us and how the wealth of this world is perishing, we should be eager to share what goods God has blessed us with. We should not hoard worrying about the future. Today is all we ever have. God will provide us what we need. Opening our hands to the poor and what God has done for us—opened up His hand to us. As His children, we are called to be like Him. These are sacrifices that are pleasing to God. They are thanksgiving sacrifices. They are sacrifices of trust in God’s promise of rewards to come that are permanent, which rust can’t destroy, moths can’t eat, and no man can steal from us. This should encourage us to share all the more.

Heavenly Father, in this life, help us to keep our eyes fixed on the promised permanent city to come, so we may live lives pleasing to You here below. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.