Searching For Some Good Real Estate

Do you ever find yourself stuck watching Home and Garden Television (HGTV)? When I was younger I made a promise to myself that I would refuse to watch such "an old person network." Yet, even before I hit 30 years old I find myself stopping on shows like "Beachfront Bargain Hunters," "Love It or List It," and "House Hunters." (Oh young Seth, you have so much still to learn!) What I find so intriguing about all of these programs, especially being a "homebody" at heart, is that I like to envision what it would be like to one day in the distant future live somewhere featured on HGTV (I do not intend to leave any time soon. I am talking four years down the road St. John's, Decatur folks). Maybe not in one of the actual homes appearing on TV, but I think about living in the mountains, on the beach, in the city, or in the country. By the time I flip off my television I am searching in my mind for a new place to call home.

Daydreaming about living somewhere else for a brief moment feels like a great escape at the time. It is refreshing, like a mini-mind-vacation. Yet, when I go searching inside for some fictional place to live I tend to leave behind what is really going on in life. This is not to say we should not think about where we live, or to dream about where we might one day live, nor is it to discount the necessity for us to have outlets for the stresses we encounter in life. We need to have healthy ways to get perspective on our daily lives. Still when I start to "future trip" to a beach bungalow in Clearwater, FL or think about flipping a home in Chattanooga, TN sometimes I end thinking that I will not be happy until I ______ (own a home, own a nice home, have granite counter tops, etc.). Believing that I have to do something to be happy is very similar to believing that I have to do something to achieve connection with the salvation that Christ initiates.

In today's letter to the Colossians, the author (probably not Paul) uses what is known as a Christ hymn to clarify for the readers that there is no requirement of any spiritual practices to satisfy some cosmic authority. There was a belief that was rampant within the church in Colossi that without ascetical work redemption in God's eyes is impossible. In the beauty of this passage though the writer of Colossians makes it clear that through Christ all things were made, in Christ God was pleased to dwell, and with Christ God lovingly reconciled all things to himself. 

Maybe this is familiar to us, and not just when we start to think that buying something new will make us feel better. Our salvation does not rest in something that we must accomplish, like updating our old bathroom with puke green wallpaper from the 1970s, so that our home might have better resale value. We are not a spiritual home-improvement project. We are not flip or flop. We are redeemed. 

We are holy and blameless and irreproachable before God because Christ Jesus has reconciled us. We can search for lots of good real estate, but we ought to know that we are priceless right were we are. Thanks be to God for that!