Forever Home in the Eternal Family of God

Encouragement for the Family of God by Kenton Cheek

11 November 2025

Reading From Hebrews 8

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
    after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds,
    and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God,
    and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
    and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
    and I will remember their sins no more.” In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”

—Hebrews 8:10-13

     In the Old Covenant, the Spirit of the Lord would temporarily come upon the saints of old and they would accomplish the task at hand that Yahweh had for them.  But the New Covenant is different.  Rather than temporary anointing, the New Covenant brings permanent relationship.  When an individual responds to the voice of the Spirit with genuine faith, sincere repentance, honest confession and humble acceptance of Jesus as Savior and Lord, God Almighty seals them to Himself and His eternal family with an eternal bond that can never be broken, a bond purchased by the blood of Jesus and applied by the Holy Spirit.  “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”[1]

     The second half of this promise in Hebrews has a future fulfillment, for on Earth in our present reality, we have been given the Great Commandment and the Great Commission and have been blessed with Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepards, and Teachers.  Therefore, there is much Holy Spirit-guided teaching that goes on between brothers and sisters and the lost, lonely and least among us. 

     In the New Eden to come, however, there will be no need for teaching, for as it is revealed in I Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”  In that day, the knowledge of God will cover the Earth as water covers the seas and those who will dwell in the New Eden are the eternal family of God, each member having been fully enlightened and perfectly united as one with the Father.  What a day that will be!

“Heavenly Father, thank You for the further light and knowledge from Your Word, illuminated by Your Holy Spirit.  The blessings of the New Covenant are plentiful and splendid beyond compare.  You unite all those who enter into it with bonds of faith, hope and love that can never be broken.  Your eternal family will have the pleasure of basking in the radiant warmth of Your Presence forever, bringing glory to Your great Name and having the most wonderful adventures together in the New Heaven and the New Earth.  Thank You for this marvelous New and Everlasting Covenant.  In the Name of Jesus Christ I pray, Amen.”

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

—Habakkuk 2:14

 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

—Ephesians 4:1-6

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

—I Peter 2:9-10

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

—I John 3:1-2

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

—Ephesians 2:19-22

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[1] Ephesians 1:13-14, see also II Corinthians 1:21-22