The home came from heaven. Modeled on the Father's house and the many mansions, and meant the one to be a training place for the other, the home is one of the gifts of the Lord Jesus—a special creation of Christianity.
Home and heaven are not so far separated as we sometimes think. Nay, they are not separated at all, for they are both in the same great building. Home is the lower story, and is located down here on the ground floor; heaven is above stairs, in the second and third stories; and, as one after another the family is called to come up higher, that which seemed to be such a strange place begins to wear a familiar aspect; and, when at last not one is left below, the home is transferred to heaven, and heaven is home.
Keep the home near heaven. Let it face toward the Father's house. Not only let the day begin and end with God, with mercies acknowledged and forgiveness sought, but let it be seen and felt that God is your chiefest joy, His will in all you do the absolute and sufficient reason.
It was Jesus Christ who, ever pointing to joys which do not perish in the using, wedded duty to delight, and re-opening to the Christian family a better paradise—the Father's house—placed the earthly home in the vestibule of heaven.
The ascension of Christ makes heaven seem homelike to us as we journey toward it; for Jesus wears our humanity at the right hand of the Father.
