Daily Light - January 9, 2011

Daily Light from the Lighthouse
40 Days of Faith

"By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country,

dwelling tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise."

Hebrews 11:9

If you were to travel to Haiti today, you would find that the capital city has been over run by tents. Every where you look there are blue tarps that have created the largest tent city in the world. People that lost their homes because of the earthquake last year are still living in these tents with no place to go. In the same manner, if you were to travel to New Orleans, outside the city limits you would find trailers that FEMA brought in to help those that were displaced after Hurricane Katrina. In both cases these tents and trailers were meant to be temporary. They were never meant to be permanent dwelling places for the displaced.
When Abraham obeyed God, he was moved from place to place with the knowledge that there was an eventual permanent place in which he would dwell. Every place that he set up his tent was foreign to him, and he knew that he was not yet home. Even as his family grew, there was always the knowledge that he was still looking for where he could eventually rest.
The Bible describes this body as a tent. Tents (tabernacles) were always representative of something temporary. As believers we are living in a temporary shelter much like those in Haiti. This isn't home, and this isn't the way it was meant to be. Sin made its way into this world by the choice of man, and we have been wandering in the wilderness ever since. When we came into a relationship with Christ, we became heirs of a promise, and we are now awaiting that promise in a foreign land.
This promise is of God, and He cannot lie. Just as tents represent the temporary, a temple denotes that which is permanent. The only time our body is described as a temple is when the Bible speaks of the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. He lives in us permanently, because there is the commitment by God to fulfill all that He has promised to His children. This future fulfillment of a promise is not an excuse for us to sit back and wait. We are not to get complacent in this tent, but we must continue to be obedient by faith and pick up and move as the Spirit leads. Living by faith is a daily chore while we keep our eyes on Jesus who is the Author and Finisher of our faith.
May you look to Jesus today!