Read: John 14:1-7
I will come again and will take you to myself. (v. 3)
Jesus left for a purpose. The disciples were troubled. They couldn’t understand why Jesus was leaving. Yet, Jesus told them that he was leaving for their good (and ours) to prepare a place for them (and us) in heaven, and he went to be the way to get there (vv. 1-3).
It’s like we’re each lost in a dense forest. Everyone is trying to find their way out of the woods, but we only get more lost than when we began. Cut by brambles and exhausted, we easily take false trails that lead us nowhere. Then the owner of the house on the far side of the forest comes, cuts a path through the forest, finds us, and then leads the way through the woods to his house. “If I go and prepare a place for you,” Jesus said, “I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (v. 3).
Jesus not only prepares the house for our arrival, but he brings us there himself. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” Jesus asserted. “No one comes to the Father except through me” (v. 6). Jesus entered heaven because we couldn’t get there ourselves. He cut his way into the thick, dense woods of our world and opened the way for us into the Father’s house.
Our hearts do not need to be troubled. For although Jesus has indeed gone away, he has gone ahead to be our way into the Father’s house.
As you pray, thank Jesus for making a way for you into the Father’s house.
About the Author
Stephen Shaffer is the pastor at Bethel Reformed Church in Brantford, Ontario.
