Crayons For Jesus


Sunday, January 11, 2009 Print E-mail
After I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back. Then I will take you with me, so that you can be where I am. John 14:3 (ETR)

Jesus is prophesying at the last dinner about his death, resurrection, and subsequent ascension when he utters this promise.  After he has washed their feet, Jesus tells the disciples again how he is preparing a place. He will have to leave, but he will come back. That is the promise they held onto and this is the promise we must hold onto.

We all have people in our lives that seem to disappear. More often than not, they never come back again. If they do come back, we fear only more hurt and more abandonment. As we lick wounds of disappointment, issues of trust begin to plague our relationship with Christ.

Is he really here with me? Why does God seem so far away? Has he forgotten about me? Why do I feel I have to earn that intimacy everyone talks about? Et cetera, et cetera. 

Through these experiences with humans we learn that mankind is selfish, unreliable, and disappointing. No wonder we step forward slightly with Christ only to run backward before we settle in.

The important thing to remember, the truth to dispel the myth that God will forsake us, is in this verse. Christ is promising us a physical return. He is going to prepare a place better than this broken world for us.

The thing more important than Christ’s promise of a physical reunion is to remember that his death and resurrection create the opportunity for a daily reconciliation and reunion through fellowship with his spirit.

Christ is right there where you are. Things aren’t always what they appear. You cannot let your feelings rob you of the truth of the wholeness and oneness you can have with Christ each day. You cannot earn what his grace promises, you can only receive if you believe.

Christ will return physically, but we can’t forget that His spirit has never left us.

Physically we are apart, but by his blood we are one with Christ today and forever. He will physically come back and take us to our eternal home, but His spirit has always and will always be in and surround those saved by his blood. 

Lord Jesus,
When we feel far away from you, when we feel abandoned, when we are hurting and suffering disappointment, we ask that your Holy Spirit remind us that you are ever present in our lives. You are preparing an eternal home, but upon our salvation our home is anywhere your spirit is. You are everywhere and pray that you will open our eyes to see that you are still as much apart of us as you were at our conversion. When everyone else has walked out, you are still there. Your never changing faithfulness is what we crave most. Reassure us of your presence in your work in us so that we might leap forward in faith and never shrink back from what you have for us.  In your precious name, Amen.