Dear Friend,

We often hear this question posed, almost always speaking of our natural homes, or physical living quarters. But I want to ask it in a different way: are you at home spiritually?

For that, you must know what "home" means from heaven's perspective - and we get that only from God's inspired Word, the Bible!

Psalm 91 answers this clearly and fully. It reveals that believers who live in God's presence daily make this "secret place" of profound, penetrating, transforming fellowship with God their "habitation," or dwelling, residence, or home address (see vv. 1, 9). Specifically, your spiritual "home" is wherever you quietly but passionately seek to intimately know Jesus, drawing near Him in conscious, humble dependence, with thanksgiving, sweet songs of praise and worship, childlike prayer, an open mind, a listening heart, and patient reading and searching of the God-revealing Word of God. That's your spiritual home address. That's where you should go out from and return to with clockwork-like constancy day in and day out.

This spiritual home is not only a sweet place of meeting Jesus face to face, it is also supremely sturdy, durable, and the safest of safe places. As long as you live in it, you are undeceivable, indefatigable, undiscourageable, undefeatable, invincible!

There your heavenly Father, your one and only spiritual Covering, "shall cover thee" with His invisible yet impenetrable "wings," as a great eagle does its brooding eaglets (v. 4). His divine wings are your "roof," and no incendiary Luciferian lightning bolts, adversaries' cruel slander-arrows, sudden hail from hell, or demonic fires of reproach can penetrate it. Oh, what a roof there is on your home!
 
There you will enjoy your Father's uniquely superior, supernatural security. "His angels" are posted all about your home, guarding you "in all thy ways [paths]" (v. 11). When you make Christ your home, the Father places increased value on your life for His kingdom purposes. Hence, His kingdom "security," the angels, are always on the job, surrounding you, at this and every moment, as one of heaven's treasured, gifted, human resources. Oh, what security your home has!

Additionally, your home is a "refuge," or place of protection, rest, nourishment, and restoration, in every satanic storm that assaults your life, faith, walk, and work with Christ (v. 2). As long as you stay home, every storm, however ferocious, stubborn, and seemingly endless, will eventually pass as you endure in close fellowship with Jesus. Oh, what a refuge!

Your home is also a "fortress," or place of protection, refreshment, rearmament, and counterattack during spiritual warfare (v. 2). This implies spiritually hostile people will reject and stubbornly oppose you, to crush your faith, and stop your fruitful walk and work with Jesus, as King Saul did David, as Joseph's envious brothers did him, and as the Pharisees and Judaisers did the apostle Paul. When these hard-faced, hard-hearted, conscienceless, obstinate, demonically inspired people press against you relentlessly, you learn to respond by pressing into your home all the more.

You spend even more time there. And there, in your fortress-home, you find impenetrable protection and inexhaustible spiritual food and drink, to not only sustain your spiritual life but grow it immensely. There you learn to launch counterattacks against your enemies' dark inspirers (Ephesians 6:12) by not resisting "evil for evil" (Romans 12:17-21) and through Holy Spirit intercessions, trust in God, close obedience to His Word, and faithful continuance in the work or ministry He has assigned you. And when God, who "makes wars cease" (Psalm 46:9), terminates your conflict, you will emerge from your bunker-home without being harmed by the ordeal spiritually, psychosomatically, or emotionally, as did the three Hebrew boys (Daniel 3:26-27). Oh, what a fortress!

This is your home. Your only home. There is no other. Try as you may, you will not find another living place offering such wondrous comfort - the penetrating, sweet, sustaining, reviving presence of Christ by His Holy Spirit - or such amazing features.

Yes, you guessed it. I'm trying to sell you a home. I'm one of heaven's real estate agents. I'm showing you selected pics of this home's gorgeous interior, sturdy foundation, multidimensional use, and unmatched value. Oh, your home is priceless! Oddly, it can't be bought! But it can be built. Without money. Without a mortgage. Its price is a willing, spiritually hungry heart that is ready to build a lasting God-home. Can we transact some business now?

If so, three things remain for you to do: build your home, remain there, and take home with you wherever you go. Let's examine these three responsibilities.

First, you must personally build this home that cannot be purchased with money, brick by brick, board by board, nail by nail. Here are some construction suggestions. Select a place in your physical house where you can have "home" with Jesus. Go there alone first thing every morning. That is the time God has chosen to meet with you: "Be ready in the morning ... and present thyself there to me" (Exodus 34:2). Be absolutely alone, not sharing this time with others, even family: "And no man shall come up with thee" (34:3). Close the door. Shut off all noisemakers - iPhones, radios, TVs. computers. If a quiet, solitary place is not available inside your house, go outside. Jesus "often withdrew" to the mountains or wilderness to pray (Luke 5:16, NIV). A.W. Tozer resorted to the furnace room in his basement for a while. Others have met God in the woods, sheds, even barns, when necessary.

Get quiet before the Lord. Have a good chair, well-lit desk, and pen and pad at the ready, to respectfully record whatever the Holy Spirit shows you in God's Word or speaks in your heart. Be rested - so get sufficient sleep nightly. Be alert - a little cold water on the face or neck helps. Have something to drink - coffee, tea, water. Have multiple Bibles - your primary and other excellent translations. Lay out all these things the night before, so you are ready to rise, shine, and seek the Sun of Righteousness until His shining life-beams reenergize you.

Second, remain in your home a while. Do not be in a hurry. Rushing will ruin your home - no one, including Jesus, enjoys a rushed visit. Be reverent, or respectful - you're about to have an audience with the KING OF KINGS. Seek Him His way, not yours - "come before His presence with singing" and His Spirit-Presence will come before you, settle down around you, and thoroughly permeate you (Psalm 100:1-4). Continue for a few minutes offering thanksgiving and gratefully recounting what He has done for you in the last few days. Raise your hands unto Him, as David did (Psalm 143.6), signifying full surrender, like a child reaching out to his loving Father.

Then start reading your Bible wherever your heart and faith are fed - in the Psalms, Proverbs, Gospels, or to whatever book, after asking Him, the Holy Spirit leads you to peruse. The Holy Spirit knows what Word will be spiritual bread and life to you each day, and He'll faithfully bring it to mind, or lead you to it, if you ask Him. Read thoughtfully and prayerfully. Search chain references or texts in your study Bible notes - often the Spirit leads this way. Jot down other Bible references that quietly come to mind as you are reading - these too are often the Spirit's voice leading.

When you find a mother lode of biblical blessing - the passage that causes your heart to burn, your energy to rise, your hope to soar, and your love to burst into flames, stay there. Soak a while. Don't rush off until your blessing is complete. Then, fed and blessed at home, you'll be a blessing and have food to feed someone else's faith. And all day long you will walk and work closely with your "Housemate," Christ, with His inspired Word inspiring your actions and reactions! Ah, what a home! No worldly real estate agent can sell you this!

Once you have built your home, never leave it! Do not drift away and become inconsistent. As you drift, you dry up, as your Housemate warned, "Apart from Me, you can do nothing" (John 15:5, NAS). And above all, never abandon your home. Our adversary, Satan, cannot spoil our homes, but we can, if we choose to desert them. So, he relentlessly uses offenses, hard trials, and even our occasional sins and failures to try to discourage us, making us feel like foolish failures, so we will voluntarily drift from, or preferably leave our homes altogether. Sadly, many have completely abandoned their homes.

The church is filled with spiritually dry, dead, drifter-believers. Though born-again, they are trying to find a home in other places - worldly success, wealth, pleasure, academic knowledge, men's praises, church attendance, ministry activity, charitable works, doctrine! And it's not to be found in any of these places.

Third, learn to take your home with you. Wherever you travel - on ministry, labor, vacation, or missions - upon arrival set up "home" in whatever location, nation, culture, domicile, or building you are in. Do it immediately and practice all the things above at that location just as you would in your own physical house. If you take home with you, you'll find home wherever you go, and be at home there - fully ready to live every moment with Jesus, full of His life, love, Word, and flowing energy and initiatives.

Summarizing, all of us are in one of three conditions: at home, away, or homeless.

The homeless are professing, but not possessing Christians. They profess faith in Christ but, without Christ living within, they are not born again. They are religious, attend church, and are relatively serious about religion - but they have no personal relationship with the Redeemer, and thus no personal fellowship with Him. Or, they may be born-again, and have a grace-given relationship with Him, but do not seek Him regularly and therefore have no personal fellowship with Him. Though Christ is their Savior, they have not made Him their home as Psalm 91 so clearly describes.

Christians who are away have built their spiritual home, as described earlier, and lived in it for a season. They know the "secret place" life of Psalm 91 experientially. But by reacting wrongly to the trials of life, they have become offended with their Housemate and have drifted away from Him. Sometimes very far. Their home and Housemate faithfully await their return but, for the present, they're not interested in returning. They are saved by His grace, but ever prodigal, ever drifting, ever discontent, and never at home.

Christians at home are those who have built their spiritual homes, as detailed above. They also live in them habitually, take them wherever they go, and refuse to leave them for any reason. Through every season of life, however prosperous or persecuted, they remain at home.

So, again, I ask, at this very moment, are you at home? Or away? Or homeless?

At home, and at rest,

Greg Hinnant
Greg Hinnant Ministries