More Beyond

" For our conversation is in Heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ ." Philippians 3:20

For hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus was born, the motto of Spain was  ne plus ultra.  This phrase is Latin for "no more beyond."

Exploration had ceased because the Spaniards believed they had already discovered everything worth discovering. Thankfully, Christopher Columbus did not share that sentiment.

Today, in Spain, there is a beautiful monument to Columbus. It is a statue of a huge lion with the words, "ne plus ultra" underneath it. However, the lion is eating the first word, "ne." All that can be read is "more beyond."

For several weeks, violence and anarchy have raged in many American cities, during which many of our national monuments have been destroyed, including one of Christopher Columbus. In a very short time, our nation has become a place that I barely recognize.

The Apostle Paul told the Philippians that our citizenship is in Heaven. Likewise, the Apostle Peter, in his first epistle, addressed Christians as strangers or foreigners. With every day that passes, I feel less and less at home in this world. I keep hearing the words of an old song we used to sing in church:

    "This world is not my home; I'm just passing through

    My treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue,

    The angels beckon me, from Heaven's open door

    I can't feel at home in this world anymore."

The people who are burning, looting and defying authority, think they are going to reach a utopia, but sadly, if they don't find Jesus Christ, there

will be "no more beyond."

The final words of some well-known people that lived their lives for sin, pleasure, wealth, and fame show desperation and disillusionment.

Louis Mayer, movie producer and co-founder of MGM studios, died in 1957 at the age of seventy-two. His final words were, "It wasn't worth it."

Voltaire, the French infidel, said to his doctor, "I am abandoned by God and man. I will give you half of my wealth if you will give me six months to live."

As born again Christians, we do not live with hopelessness. Before He dismissed His spirit and died, the last words of Jesus Christ were, " tetelestai " or "It is finished!" Those words assure us that there is  much  more beyond this world.

In the hours before His arrest, Jesus spent the time comforting and reassuring His downcast, frightened disciples. Their world had been turned upside down, but Christ tells them, in essence, "there is more beyond."

"Let not your hearts be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." John 14:1-2

"Let not your hearts be troubled;" there is more beyond.

Jesus called Heaven, "My Father's house." He was letting us know Heaven is home! Is there any lovelier word than home? Someone said, "Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to." My parents have both been dead for several years, yet I still miss going home. As Dorothy found out in  The Wizard of Oz,  there is no place like home. As a child, home was a safe haven for me. In my father's house, I was loved, accepted, and secure.

"I go to prepare a place for you;" there is more beyond.

The word  "prepare"  is from the Greek word  hetoimazo.  This word means "to make ready." In ancient times, it was used to describe the custom of sending people before kings that were traveling. The roads would be leveled and cleared of obstacles. The Lord has gone before and blazed the trail for us to follow. 

" I am the way, the truth and the life." John 14:6

"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:3

"I will come again;" there is more beyond.

With those words, Jesus Himself gave us the promise of the Rapture. The Apostle Paul shared the revelation of the Rapture of the church with the Thessalonian Christians in his first epistle. He encouraged them to comfort each other with the knowledge and the promise that Jesus Christ was going to return and take His people home. Those early Christians were living in hard, trying times. They were suffering for the cause of Christ. They needed to hear that there was more beyond the world in which they were living.

America is growing spiritually darker every day. Everything is turned upside down. Good is being called evil, and evil is being called good. We do not know what we may soon be facing, but the Apostle Peter gives us some advice. He said,  "If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye. If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf." I Peter 4: 14, 16

Whatever the future holds, through Christ, we can triumph; we can overcome. The journey is never too long nor hard when the destination is home!

For centuries the islands of New Zealand were unpopulated. Then one day, Polynesian settlers arrived. They had traveled a thousand miles in outrigger canoes. How did they know they would not merely sail across empty seas? How did they know the land was there? For centuries, Polynesians had known land was there because their voyagers had seen a long white cloud on the distant horizon. They knew when a cloud stayed in one place over a very long period of time, there was land beneath it.

The Polynesian settlers were the first humans to set foot on the islands of New Zealand because they dared to believe there was "more beyond!"

The Old Testament patriarchs and saints walked by faith, not sight. They lived as nomads. For them, home was a tent. Hebrews 11: 13-16 says they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. They desired a better country where God had prepared a city for them. They walked by faith because they knew there was "more beyond."

When Michael Faraday, the great English physicist, was dying, friends gathered at his bedside. They wanted to hear his last words. "What are your speculations?" one of them asked. His answer was firm: "Speculations! I have none. I am resting on certainties."

"On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand."

I, too, confess that I am a foreigner on this earth; it's not my home. I have set my affections on things above.

On the authority, the certainty of the Word of God, I  KNOW  there is, "more beyond!"