September 25, 2020
John 14:1-3, 23-24
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God believe also in me.  My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.  My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.  Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me."
New International Version (NIV)
“Where is home for you?”  I often get interesting responses when I ask this question.  Sometimes people tell me where they grew up.  At other times they tell me the city where they presently live.  Not once has anybody answered the question, “Heaven”.  For me, at least, the question is easier to ask than to answer.  I calculated once that I have lived in over twenty-five different residences.  But I have been in the same one for over 15 years, a record for me. 

One result of moving a lot with my dad’s job in the Air Force is that I hate to move.  I even hate to move my kids from one place to another here in the city.  We asked our daughter to stay her last two years in the same house at college.  She is decidedly undecided about that. 

G. K. Chesterton discovered that he felt “homesick” even when he was at home.  We need a home.  Deeply wired in our nature is the need to have a place of security and safety.  Can you believe that Jesus who fashioned the worlds had no place to lay his head?  He spent the last nights in the last week of his life under olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

So when Jesus told his disciples he was going away, he set off some security alarms in their soul.  If home is where the heart is, Jesus had been home base for these followers for three years.  Now he was going away.  Where would they go?  Jesus promised them a place that he would prepare for them.  He would not leave them as orphans, but he would come for them. 

We already knew this part of the story.  I include the second passage to remind us that while Jesus is preparing a place for us in his Father’s house, he is making himself at home by his Holy Spirit in the hearts of his followers who love him and obey him.  “My father  will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

I know we know that God’s home is in heaven.  But if we asked God today, “Where is home for you?” he would answer, “In you.”  Can we believe that he makes himself at home in the hearts of his disciples?  Do we love him?  Let us obey him.  Not only is God preparing a place for us, but he is preparing us for that place.  Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people.  No matter how many times we have moved, Jesus envisions and promises one last move for us.  Believe him when he says, we are going to love it and never want to leave it!  Until then he will never leave us.  Rest in this hope.  
Pray with me:         
Father, thank you for preparing a place for us in your house with many rooms.  Even more, thank you for making yourself at home in our lives.  Continue to prepare us for the place you are preparing for us.  Home is where you are.  Being at home with you here creates a longing for a permanent place in your presence.  Help us not to become so comfortable here that we forget about life with you there.  Set our hearts on things above where Christ is seated at your right hand.  Set our minds on things above and not on earthly things.  We pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.  
Join us in memorizing the Word.  Scripture for this week:    
Matthew 7:1-2
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Our 2020 Every Day with Jesus readings will follow the Foundations New Testament reading plan.  Copies of the reading plan are available at Tallowood Baptist Church, or download your copy at REPLICATE.ORG 
We would love for you to join us as we read the New Testament through this year, five chapters a week.  In addition I will continue my long-standing practice of reading one Psalm a day through the year.  Use Robby Gallaty’s H. E. A. R. plan to study each chapter (also found at REPLICATE.ORG). Highlight verses which speak to you, explain what they mean in your own words in a journal, apply them to your own life, then respond by doing what God tells you to do.  
Joyfully, 
Duane 
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