“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” John 14:3
Dear Ones:
One of the greatest and most comforting words in Scripture is that found in John 14, where the Lord speaks of His departure from this world, and His work of preparing a “place” for the believer. What is so remarkable, and gripping, is the personal address to the heart of the individual believer. Not only does He announce His sacrifice and eternal work, but He speaks of His personal coming to the individual soul. Sometimes we are apt to be lost in the greatness of God, His power and might, and forget that He comes for us personally, and calls us by our names. The greater and more expanded meaning of this revelation is that He comes to “…receive us unto Himself.”
During the Protestant Reformation, when Geneva, Switzerland was a city of refuge for those believers fleeing persecution in France, believing inhabitants would go out to receive those who had to leave all, and flee, sometimes with few possessions, and certainly with a lot of memories of suffering. Christ is that one who is looking down the corridor of earth’s existence, looking intently for those who are coming. In Paul Gerhardt’s great hymn he writes: “Midst the darkness, storm, and sorrow, One bright gleam I see; Well I know the blessed morrow Christ, will come for me. Midst the light, and peace, and glory, of the Father’s home, Christ for me is waiting, watching, …waiting till I come.” But why is this promise of His coming, and receiving us, so glorious and wonderful? Again, Gerhardt’s words are so appropriate: “O the blessed joy of meeting, all the desert past! O the wondrous words of greeting He shall speak at last! He and I together ent’ring Those bright courts above; He and I together sharing all the Father’s love.” Jesus declared to us His objective for “winning” us, dying to save us. It is that where He IS, there, we may be also. From a practical standpoint, this concept of heaven, being WITH Christ, is realized in part on this earth, each time we are where we should be, believing Him for the communion with Him that He desires to give. It was Burns, a godly missionary that ministered with Robert Murray McChene, and later went to China many years ago, who wrote that the only thing that distinguished one place from another for him, was the manifest presence of Christ. If the promise of our meeting Him is so wonderfully promised, that we might BE with Him forever, to know Him, HOW MUCH does He desire to reveal Himself to our souls and spirits on this earth, as a testimony to the glory of His person, and the power of His love and power?
Dear Father, to the question: “And how Lord shall it be today, and how shall we know the way,” we would turn to Thee and declare: “‘T’is Yours to lead me there, not mine but Thine,… at any cost, dear Lord, by any road.” Grant us an increasingly clear vision of Thy heart, and the eternal purpose for which Christ died…that we might be WITH HIM, and He with us, to know and love Him, the highest calling of all. We thank and praise Thee in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Love, Dad