Blessed are you as you find your strength not in this world and its nations, but in the Lord God who has all authority over Heaven and Earth and is head over all things for the sake of His Church. The world says you are a citizen of country that is only temporary. There was a time when a different kingdom ruled over this country's land. And in the future this piece of ground will be ruled by yet another kingdom - at the time of the New Heavens and the New Earth, if not sooner. However, you have the inheritance of the saints in light because God the Father has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Until you appear before God in Zion, you pause your travels at rest stops the Lord has placed for you, going from the strength of one Divine Service to the strength of the next. And along your way in the days of the week between, out of your heart flows streams of living water (that is, the Holy Spirit). He cascades from your daily life to make this dead world to be a place of Life in the Christ who died for us, covering the land with pools of salvation.
