“HOME” is a great word. You’ve heard people say, “Home is where the heart is.” Dorothy, when she was wandering in the Land of Oz, was told by the good witch of the north that if she would click the heels of her magic red slippers three times and repeat saying, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home,” she would instantly find her way back to her home in Kansas. Dorothy was right, there’s truly no place like home.
When baseball players hit the ball over the fence, they call it a “Home Run”. Every time a baseball player steps up to hit, he touches home plate with his bat before every pitch. He touches home plate because that is the place he wants to wind up. The purpose of the game is to cross home plate. You do not score a run until you cross home plate. Babe Ruth said, “Every strike is one step closer to a home run.”
Whatever you say about your home, home is the place where God wants to live with you. The Bible says, “Now my eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place. For not I have chosen and consecrated this house that My name may be there forever, and my eyes and My heart will be there forever.” (2 Chronicles 7:15-16)
That is God’s promise for his home and that is what He wants to do in your home. God wants your home to be a place where He dwells. Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23) Jesus wants to live inside your home.
Years ago, had you stood on the street corner and watched the funeral procession, you would have been extremely impressed. You would have seen standing there, with his head bowed and his hat removed, and tears in his eyes, the President of the United States. Around him would have been the Cabinet, officers and members of Congress, dignitaries from Berlin, London, Tokyo, and Washington.
There was a tremendous crowd there watching that casket, draped in Old Glory, as it went down the road in that funeral procession. Well who was this? Who was this person who was so honored? Well, he never held an elected office; he wasn't wealthy. In fact, I will call his name in a moment and I doubt any of you will recognize it. He got into government service, ended up overseas in Tripoli and he died in Tripoli. But, he was so loved and so revered by the people of this country, and by people from all over the world, that they disinterred his body there in Tripoli and brought him back to the United States to give him this magnificent funeral. His name was John Howard Payne. Ring a bell? I didn't think so.
Do you know what he was so loved for? He was so honored and loved because of one simple line that he wrote:
Mid pleasures and palaces,
Though oft I may roam;
Be it ever so humble,
There's no place like home.