‘For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ Matthew 6:21

If you were to look at a world map, I would like to suggest that you might look at one of two countries first, the country of your birth or a place that holds special emotions i.e. your favourite holiday destination or the place where you took your honeymoon.

As a school boy growing up I had little interest in geography as these islands and continents with strange shapes were places I never dreamed I would get to visit in my young minds eye. As an adult now, a map is like a scrape book of precious memories, as I have had the opportunity to travel and experience the some of the world beyond my own borders. 

When Anaximander, a Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus in the 6th century, drew the first map, then in 1492 Christopher Columbus embarked on his discovery of the ‘New World’ they drew oceans, sea, lands and borders. But what they could not draw was he sky. Airspace only became territorial after the invention of airplanes in 1903 by the Wright brothers

Jesus however had already drawn his own world map in the sky, as Revelation 1:7 tells us,

‘Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.’

Furthermore, the apostle Paul writes in Act1:11 concurs,

‘Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

Which concurs with the gospel writer in Matthew 24:30 who pens,

‘And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Maybe next time we look at a map we too should look for what is not there. Instead look up to the clouds where you new home will be. As Matthew 6:21 puts it,

‘For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’

Wintley Phipps sings ‘Jesus is coming again’. Click on the picture to listen.