by Leigh Ann Dilley on January 27, 2022
This week’s promise to claim comes from our Monthly Promises of God card. January’s promise to memorize is John 14:3 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.
The promise begins in the previous verse, John 14:2. I’ve used the NLT version, so we can hear it differently. John 14: 2-3 There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.
Jesus made this promise to His disciples the night he was arrested. He had just washed their feet and celebrated the last supper. After predicting His own betrayal and Peter’s denial, Jesus tells His disciples not to be troubled, but to trust in God, and to trust in Him also. (John 14:1) There are many things to consider in this promise. Let’s start with the phrase “more than enough room in my Father’s home”. The Greek word for home (some translations say, house, mansion, or rooms) is oikia. The word for mansion is mone'. Both mean “dwelling place”. The Greek word for place is topos, it means an “inhabited place” a place where we live.
Jesus promises to prepare a place for us when he leaves. Traditionally, many people think of a “dwelling place” as a mansion with many rooms. Chuck Smith presents the idea in his commentary that the “dwelling place” Jesus has gone to prepare is not a building, but the “dwelling place” is our own heavenly body. Afterall, Jesus will soon be resurrected to a new body and through His resurrection, He created a new pathway to God, so we may be with Him. If we follow Jesus’ pathway, won’t we need new, resurrected bodies too? Our resurrected bodies may not need a building with four walls to “dwell in” in heaven.
Paul describes our heavenly dwelling in 2 Corinthians 5:4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling. . . and in verse 6, Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We “groan in this tent” because on earth, our bodies are subject to age, injury, disease, and environmental hazards which make us long for the heavenly body Jesus is preparing for us. These heavenly bodies will be perfect and not subject to hazards of earth as we know it.
Then, we are promised, when everything is ready, Jesus will come back and get us, and we will always be with Him. One by one, Jesus fulfilled this promise to His disciples, and He will fulfill this promise to us individually, when everything is ready for each of us.
Finally, the best part, we will be with Jesus. But wait! If Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us, we also must prepare to be with Him. I’ve heard it said, heaven is a prepared place for prepared people. Are you prepared? We prepare ourselves by confessing our sin and asking Jesus to be our personal Lord and Savior.
From there, we trust in Him, just as He said to do in John 14: 2. It’s a promise.
