Where did the son go when all other hope was gone? Home. Who was at home waiting for him? His father. No doubt, the father in this parable didn’t just happen to see his son in the distance. He was looking for him, never giving up hope that his son would return home to receive the love and forgiveness only his father could give him. The younger son went home to his father, and our true home—the place of love, forgiveness, and refuge—is where our heavenly Father is.

The old saying “There’s no place like home” implies that home is a place we want to be, but that isn’t always the case depending on what home means to us personally. The internet, magazines, movies, and books showcase countless idyllic images of home, beautiful spaces that are warm, cozy, and filled with love. Indeed, home is meant to be a safe haven, a place of rest and safety from the cares of the world.

Yet perhaps our home growing up wasn’t a safe place emotionally, physically, or spiritually, and as adults we want the place we call home to be some version of the carefully curated photos that surround us. It may also be that during childhood we had a neighbor or friend who seemed to have that “perfect” home we yearned for, and perhaps continue to wish for even now.

While we don’t want to make an idol out of our homes, it’s natural and right for us to long for a wonderful home. God has put it in our hearts to value home and all the good things associated with our dwelling place.

Let’s take a look at three Bible passages to better understand what home truly means for every Christian.

1. The Christian’s ultimate home is located where the Lord is present (Psalm 27:4).

First, we read the following in the Old Testament about the house of the Lord:

One thing have I asked of the Lord,
    that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
    and to inquire in his temple. (Ps. 27:4)

In this passage the psalmist declares that his one desire is to “dwell in the house of the Lord.” And why does the psalmist desire this? To be in the house of the Lord, “to inquire in his temple,” is to be in God’s presence. Everything else we see as beautiful in this world cannot begin to compare to the beauty of gazing upon God himself, and the psalmist is not only focused on beauty here.

As pastor Zach Keele notes in a sermon on Psalm 27, the psalmist knows that perfect safety in found in God’s presence. To be in God’s presence so fully that we can actually gaze upon him means no harm can come to us; we are safe from all our enemies (Ps. 27:1-3).

And while we cannot gaze upon God with our eyes in this world, we can regularly enter God’s house when we worship every Sunday:

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matt. 18:20)

We gaze upon God not by sight but by faith, knowing that he is there with us in our worship:

As our faith waits upon the second coming of Christ, how it is cheered along the way? It is by the one wish of the psalmist: to dwell in God’s house.

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