Our family just spent a few days in Florida. The sunshine and blue skies were a welcome change for our winter-weary spirits. My kids, who are Fixer Upper fans, liked looking at the homes that line the beach and picking out ones they wanted to live in. Probably the only way that’s going to happen would be for someone to randomly gift us their estate.
There’s a vast difference between owning a beachfront mansion on paper and living in a beachfront mansion that’s all yours. The difference is one of experience. Head knowledge and a deed to the property are all well and good, but what difference do they really make if you’ve never been there?
I’m afraid too many of us hold deeds to property that we’ve never visited, that we’ve never taken ownership of. We know there are benefits that are ours as children of God. Maybe we believe there’s a room waiting for us in a heavenly mansion. But we never do anything with those benefits. We never take advantage of them. We never experience them.
Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come fearlessly into God’s presence, assured of his glad welcome. Ephesians 3:12
This is the deed we hold but how many of us have never crossed the threshold of this mansion, much less moved in and taken possession of it?
God’s desire is not that we would just know we own the property, but that we would live there and enjoy all its benefits. The passage in Ephesians says “now.” Not some future day, but now. It’s a present reality.
Take possession of the land and settle in it, because I have given it to you to occupy. Numbers 33:53
God has given us a magnificent place to dwell where He wants us to live today. It’s a place of grace and freedom and it’s far better than a beachside mansion.