The Perfect City

I love to read the headlines on my Internet browser’s home page. There are always so many interesting links to different sites and articles. One of them this morning was “Find the Perfect City.” When I clicked on it, it linked me to a site where I could fill in some search criteria and match my desires with the “perfect city.” Each of the following were used as a basis to make the choice: population, school rating, cost of living index, average home price, income tax rate, future job growth, number of sunny days, air quality, water quality, and violent crime. All of those are important. My favorite is the number of sunny days. The more I began to think about this site, the more I was reminded of the following passage of Scripture and my ultimate home: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a beautiful bride prepared for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, "Look, the home of God is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will remove all of their sorrows, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever." And the one sitting on the throne said, "Look, I am making all things new!" And then he said to me, "Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true." And he also said, "It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega--the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give the springs of the water of life without charge! All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children. (Revelation 21:1-7 NLT). Now that’s the place I want to live! And I can through faith in Christ. Perhaps you may thinking “that’s good, but what about now?” John Bradford, a great preacher from the sixteenth century, said, “Appreciation of heaven is frequently highest among those nearing death. Suffering both increases our desire for heaven and prepares us for it.” Bradford, less than five months before his fiery departure from life for preaching the gospel in violent times, wrote to a friend of the glories of heaven he anticipated: I am assured that though I want here, I have riches there; though I hunger here, I shall have fullness there; though I faint here, I shall be refreshed there; and though I be accounted here as a dead man, I shall there live in perpetual glory. In 2011 a Gallup poll showed that 78 percent of Americans expect to go to heaven when they die. However, many of them hardly ever pray, read the Bible, or attend church. They admit that they live to please themselves instead of God. I wonder why these people would want to go to heaven. I hope you are not in that category. What city do you want to live in?