His Ripest Fruit

“Let not your hearts be troubled…In my Father’s house are many rooms…If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you…I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”  John 14:1-4

 

I don’t remember a time when I have witnessed so many deaths as I have witnessed over the past 12 months.  It seems one person has barely been committed back to the Lord before another is laid to rest.  No wonder I was so blessed to receive a new book from a precious woman called We Shall See God by Randy Alcorn.  He has studied the topic of Heaven for over 25 years and this book is a response to sermons on Heaven from Charles Spurgeon back in the 1800’s.  

 

Yesterday was the morning after heartbreak for a family my daughter knows very well.  A young man was killed in a motorcycle accident on Mother’s Day before his life had barely evolved.  Our hearts tell us that this loss is senseless…tragic…life-altering…and it is!  But with a heavy heart I read something this morning that gave me a higher view of things to come.  It allowed me to lean into the sound of God walking through creation and tending to His family.  For a moment, I was able to see our loved ones longed for and esteemed by a Father who had been separated long enough from those children.  Take a moment and picture your loved one at the center of God’s love when their purpose on earth has been fulfilled.

 

‘The Master is gathering the ripest of his fruit, and well does he deserve them.  His own dear hand is putting his apples of gold into his baskets of silver, and as we see that it is the Lord, we are bewildered no longer…We understand why the dearest and best are going.  We see in whose hand is held the magnet which attracts them to the skies.  One by one they must depart from this lowland country to dwell above, in the palace of the King, for Jesus is drawing them to himself…Our dear babies go home because ‘he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom (Isaiah 40:11).  And our ripe saints go home because the Beloved comes into his garden to gather lilies.  These words of our Lord Jesus explain the continual home-going… What can be more right than that children should go home to their father?  From him they came…and should this not be the goal of their being, that they should at last dwell in his presence?’ p. 9

 

Death will never make sense on this side of Heaven, but for a moment reflecting on Spurgeon’s words bring a little Heaven down to earth.