Seeking For A Better Country

Singapore is a desirable place to work and live in. According to the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), for the years 2019 – 2023, an average of 32,600 Permanent Residencies (PRs) were granted each year. During the same period, ICA recorded that an average of 22,400 Singapore Citizenships (SCs) were granted each year. Each year, many foreigners apply for the chance to plant roots in Singapore – to work here, to live here, to raise families here. Although each and every PR or SC applicant will have their own distinct motivations for applying to stay in Singapore, it is likely that they are all doing so because they are seeking for a better country – for themselves and their loved ones.

As Christians, we ought to remember that we should also be seeking for a better country. We are not seeking for one that is physical and temporary, but one that is heavenly and eternal. The writer of the book of Hebrews made this plain in Hebrews 11:8-10; 11:13-16:

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Hebrews 11:8-10)

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13-16)

1. Seek for a better country

   When God told Abraham to leave his homeland, Abraham obeyed and went. He did so because he was “looking for a city whose builder and maker is God”. He did so because he desired a “better country, a heavenly one”. Likewise, God called us through the gospel (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:14) to leave our lives of sin and seek a better country – Heaven, whose builder and maker is God. We desire a better country – one that is not temporary, but eternal; one that is not perishable, but imperishable; one that is not corruptible, but incorruptible.

   
   

2. Don’t look back at the old country

   The text above said that if Abraham “had been mindful of the country from which he came out, he might have had an opportunity to return”. In other words, if he kept thinking about how life had been like in Ur of the Chaldees, Ur might have seemed more appealing than sojourning in a strange land, sleeping in tents. Abraham did not look back on Ur of the Chaldees; he looked forward to a city “whose builder and maker is God”. Likewise, having been forgiven of our sins through water baptism, let us not look back fondly on our old lives of sin, no matter how pleasurable they were. Otherwise, we will end up like the example of the seed sown amongst thorns, which got choked by the cares and riches of the world (cf. Matthew 13:22).

   
   

On this National Day 2025, let us give thanks for the country we live in and pray always for our leaders, that we may live godly and peaceful lives (1 Timothy 2:1-4), but let us remember also that we ought to be seeking for a better country, a heavenly one.