Where Is “Home” for the Christian—Here or in Heaven?

Fritzpw_Admin · August 8, 2025, 5:28pm

If our citizenship is in heaven, how should we live on earth?
#HeavenlyCitizenship #LivingWithEternityInMind #christianforums #crosswalkforums #forums #crosswalk #faithcommunity #faithforums

Scripture says, “For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come” (Hebrews 13:14). It’s a beautiful promise—heaven is where we truly belong. But it also raises a question that’s harder to answer: If heaven is our home, how should we live while we’re here?

If we’re “temporary residents,” does that mean we should live with a certain detachment from the world’s concerns? Or does our heavenly citizenship give us an even greater responsibility to engage with justice, mercy, and truth in the here and now?

Some Christians lean toward active involvement—serving in communities, joining causes, speaking up for the vulnerable. Others feel our focus should stay on eternal matters, avoiding distractions that might pull us into earthly conflicts.

If our primary identity is in Christ, should we ever join a cause or movement that doesn’t share our faith—if it aligns with a biblical value?

And when we choose what movements, causes, or activist associations to align with, should our criteria be different from the world’s? What role should kingdom values play in shaping those choices?

Should Christians focus more on changing laws and systems, or on changing hearts and lives one person at a time?

“Our real home is where Christ is—but our witness is built in the place He’s left us for now.”

Infographic

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KPuff · August 9, 2025, 11:53am

From another perspective, The Christian IS a home:

Jesus … said … "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
John 14:23

Dr_S · August 11, 2025, 8:48pm

From Backwards Christian Soldiers by Gary North:

“Onward, Christian Soldiers” is a favorite hymn of most people. It is far better known than “Wayfaring Stranger,” which begins:

“I am a poor wayfaring stranger, just travelling through this world of woe.”

Yet the sentiments of the vast majority of professing Christians are with the second song, despite the fact that they are not very poor, and they are travelling in very fine style. The pilgrim motif is a lot more popular than the soldier motif.
There are reasons for this. “Christian,” in John Bunyan’s classic seventeenth-century allegory, Pilgrim’s Progress, was basically an unemployed drifter before he was converted, and an unemployed traveler after.

What did the man do for a living? Like the radio and television character of the 1940s and early 1950s, Ozzie Nelson, he had no visible means of support, no calling. Ozzie, however, must have done something for a living, but “Christian” just plodded on and on through life.

Bunyan, a wandering tinker for much of his life, and imprisoned for most of the remainder, to some degree resembled “Christian.” But a tinker at least faced a market and delivered valuable services; “Christian” was, as far as we can see, a vagrant.

This pilgrim motif stresses internal struggles over sin, rather than struggles with external enemies.

The soldier motif is the opposite. The soldier gains his self-confidence and skills in boot camp; after this initial training, he is assumed to be ready for battle. He concerns himself with the enemy, who is a true threat to his life.

The pilgrim is more like a newly reformed alcoholic or a drug addict going “cold turkey.” He wails, groans, writhes, struggles with inner horrors, and concentrates on what is going on inside him. He is at war with himself and his flesh, but not primarily at war with the external environment.

The various allegorical characters in Pilgrim’s Progress are external representations of internal enemies: vanity, doubt, despair, and so forth. The pilgrim does not bother much with his external environment, since he is only passing through. The soldier, on the other hand, is a conqueror, and he has to be concerned with what is going on around him.

Dr_S · August 11, 2025, 8:55pm

False dichotomy. A sense of calling and vocation, a sense that God has summoned us to further His purposes in the real world around us, provides much-needed internal stability. After all, as a wise man said, “No matter how much you overclock, turbocharge, or feague it, a navel view will never do when a worldview is overdue.”

If you want a set of techniques for refining your own inner life, check out Hinduism or Buddhism. If you want real stuff to do in the real world for the glory of God and the blessing of neighbor, check out one of the flavors of Christianity that tries to make sense of the WHOLE world, not just the weird “religion zone.” Viable candidates include Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and post-mil Reformed.

In practice, it’s when we get moving and doing that our inner worlds grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Trust me, I’m “on the spectrum,” and know what I’m talking about here!

Corlove13 · August 13, 2025, 1:11pm

Does Heaven Come to earth?

What is Heaven?

KPuff · August 13, 2025, 1:48pm

@Corlove13

You said:

God has revealed to earthbound mankind (man of dust) that there exists something which is “above” him; something to which man must “look up” to see. That which is “above” mankind is refered to with the English word, “Heaven”.

Isaiah 55:8-11

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts (higher) than your thoughts.”
"For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

Heaven can be thought of as three types; that which is literally above our heads, the sky, the firmament, that empyrean void through which our world cascades, outer space, and that which is above us Spiritually, the arena of perfection, the abode of God Himself. Paul spoke of being “caught up” into this “third heaven” when he wrote to the Corinthian Church.

**2 Corinthians 12:2**

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago–whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows–such a one was caught up to the third heaven.

Other references to heavens, highest heaven, or heaven of heavens are:

Deuteronomy 10:12-14

"And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD and His statutes which I command you today for your good? Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the LORD your God, also the earth with all that is in it.

1 Kings 8:27

Solomon said: “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!”

Psalm 115:15-16

May you be blessed by the LORD, Who made heaven and earth. The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’S; But the earth He has given to the children of men.

Psalm 148:1-4

Praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD from the heavens;
Praise Him in the heights!
Praise Him, all His angels;
Praise Him, all His hosts!
Praise Him, sun and moon;
Praise Him, all you stars of light!
Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, And you waters above the heavens!

Jesus taught His disciples to pray to The Father: “Your Kingdom come down, Your perfect will be done on earth as it is in Heaven!” (Matthew 6:10) Jesus taught us to pray that the Kingdom of God would indeed come to earth, and that means God would indeed dwell with mankind.

Revelation 21:3

And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle (dwelling) of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.

For us, to be in “The Kingdom of God” means we are in Christ, saved, redeemed, as we are now. For us to be in “Heaven” means we are eternally dwelling in the perfect unfettered company of God Himself.

Hpe this offers some clarity
KP

Corlove13 · August 14, 2025, 9:57am

I guess when I think of heaven I think of God’s rule.

That really goes good with I am that I am

Johann · August 14, 2025, 11:06am

@KPuff

For the Christian, “home” is not primarily a physical location but a spiritual and eternal reality rooted in union with Christ and citizenship in God’s kingdom. The Pauline epistles repeatedly anchor this concept in theological terms, often using Greek verbs that emphasize position, inheritance, and being established in Christ.

Paul writes in Philippians 3:20, “But our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” The verb politeuomai (we are citizens, present middle indicative) communicates that Christians actively live under a heavenly jurisdiction. Our true home is the sphere where Christ reigns, not the shifting circumstances of earth.

In Ephesians 2:6, Paul says God “raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” The verbs synegeiren (raised together, aorist active indicative) and synekathisen (seated together, aorist active indicative) show that our position is secured spiritually, a present reality with eternal consequences. Our home is relational and positional in Christ.

Paul expands this in 2 Corinthians 5:1, “For we know that if our earthly house (oikēma) is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” The Greek oikodome (building, noun) paired with ēktisthai (to be built, aorist passive infinitive implied) conveys that the Christian’s ultimate dwelling is divinely constructed, secure beyond material destruction.

Similarly, Colossians 3:1–2 commands, “If then you have been raised with Christ (synegeirethe, aorist passive indicative), seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God (synekathēkei, perfect active indicative). Set your mind on things above (phroneite, present active imperative), not on earthly things.” The verbs here express both positional reality and active orientation — Christians live as though their home is already heaven, shaping thought and conduct accordingly.

In sum, for the Christian, home is heavenly, spiritual, relational, and eternal. It is the sphere where Christ reigns, secured by God’s power and manifested in the believer’s life through continual union with Him. Earth is temporary, circumstances are fleeting, but in Christ, believers are already seated and citizens in a heavenly home.

Praise our great God and Savior Christ Jesus, sealed with the Holy Spirit.

J.

KPuff · August 14, 2025, 11:10am

Johann · August 14, 2025, 11:15am

Yevarechcha Elohim ve’et mishpachtcha.

God bless you and your family.

J.