Our family was planning to get a puppy, so my eleven-year-old daughter researched for months. She knew what the dog should eat and how to introduce it to our new home—among myriad other details.
Turns out puppies do best, she told me, if they’re introduced to one room at a time. So we carefully prepared a spare bedroom. I’m sure there will still be surprises as we raise our new puppy, but my daughter’s delight-infused preparation couldn’t have been more thorough.
The way my daughter channeled her eager anticipation for a puppy into loving preparation reminded me of Christ’s longing to share life with His people and His promise to prepare a home for them. Nearing the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus urged His disciples to trust Him, saying, “You believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1). Then He promised to “prepare a place for [them] . . . that [they] also may be where [He is]” (v. 3).
The disciples would soon face trouble. But Jesus wanted them to know that He was at work to bring them home to Him.
I can’t help but delight in the careful, deliberate intent with which my daughter had prepared for our new puppy. But I can only imagine how much more our Savior is delighting in His own detailed preparation for each of His people to share eternal life with Him (v. 2).
By Adam Holz
REFLECT & PRAY
How do you feel knowing that Jesus is preparing a place for you in His Father’s house? How might hanging on to that hope give you strength or courage in difficult seasons?
Jesus, thank You for going to prepare a place for me. Help me to put my hope in You fully and not to be troubled by the struggles in this life that might tempt me to take my eyes off You.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
John 13–17 is known as the Upper Room Discourse, so named because Jesus taught it on the very night of His arrest in the “large room upstairs” where he held the Passover meal with His disciples (Mark 14:12–15). Christ said He would soon leave them—those who would abandon, betray, and disown Him (Matthew 26:31; John 13:21, 38). Yet He comforted His disciples with the assurance of heaven and the promise of His return (14:1–3), the privilege and power of prayer (vv. 12–14), the indwelling and guiding presence of the Holy Spirit (vv. 16–17; 16:5–15), and His peace and ultimate victory (16:33). Jesus tenderly spoke of heaven as “my Father’s house” (14:2). Earlier, He spoke of it as the place where God reigns (Matthew 5:34). Just before He died, He spoke of it as “paradise” (Luke 23:43), meaning “an Eden—a place of blessedness.”
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