“In my Father’s house are many rooms,” Jesus told His disciples hours before His crucifixion. “If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (Jn. 14:2-3).
God wants us to live with Him. We were created to live “in the presence of the LORD God” – until sin took that from us (Gen. 3:8). Through Jesus, God has given us a Way home. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth…You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you,” Jesus said (Jn. 14:15-17). “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…These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (Jn. 14:23-24, 15:11). When we follow Jesus, we experience abundant life in God’s presence – starting right now.
Yet as wonderful as living this life in God’s presence is, there will still be pain, shame, and suffering while sin and death remain. Jesus is going to take care of that, too: “Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, ‘I believed, and so I spoke,’ we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence” (2 Cor. 4:13-14). When that day comes, “what is mortal” about us will be “swallowed up by life” as we are brought home with the Lord (cf. 2 Cor. 4:16-5:10). How can we be sure? “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee” (2 Cor. 5:5). As our lives change now, we know that Jesus will also keep His promise to come and bring us into God’s presence forever.
We miss out on that blessed assurance when our focus is on doing the minimum necessary to avoid “the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord” (2 Thes. 1:9). Such an approach isn’t living abundantly. It doesn’t make our joy full. It isn’t the Way – but Jesus is. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn. 14:6). As we fully devote ourselves to living His Way, we will experience the joy of God’s presence now – and incredible hope for when He comes.
Join us as we learn from the real people in Jerusalem, Antioch, and Ephesus how to truly follow “The Way, the Truth, and the Life” of Jesus Christ together!