Lutheran Devotional 6th August 2025, Wednesday Message
TOPIC: Looking for a Homeland
SCRIPTURE: Hebrews 11:1, 8-11, 13-16
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1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she[a] considered him faithful who had made the promise.
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.
TODAY’S MESSAGE
My family are immigrants, most of them. My husband was one of the boat people refugees from Vietnam. Over the past 40 years, he has learned to love his new country.
And yet, I know there are times he misses the place he grew up. The sights and sounds of home—even the smells—we can all understand how they can make a person homesick. But what do we call people who are homesick for a place they have never been to?
We call them “Christians,” according to the writer of Hebrews. For he points out what we all know in our hearts—that this world is not our home, however much we may love it. We are “strangers and exiles on the earth,” people who never really belong here. And the world knows it. As Jesus said to His disciples, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19).
He’s right, isn’t He? Every day, in big and little ways, the world reminds us that we don’t fit in. We follow the One who loved His enemies, who died for those who hated Him, and who rose from the dead three days later to become the Source of life for everyone who trusts in Him—freely, as a gift, without demanding anything of us. None of that makes sense in the eyes of this world. But that kind of amazing love is the foundation of the next world—the love of God, who has made us His children through faith in Jesus Christ.
WE PRAY: Lord Jesus, keep my heart set on You and my eyes looking for the Kingdom You have promised to bring us into. Amen.
Reflection Questions:
- When have you felt most keenly that you don’t belong here? Give an example.
- Why doesn’t Jesus just take us out of the world now? See John 15:26-27 and John 17:18-19.
- What help do we have while we are in this world? See the same verses.
Today’s Readings:
Psalms 130-132
1 Corinthians 1
This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Kari Vo.
