ROOM IN CHRIST FOR YOU

Friday 28 February

In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:2-3 (NKJV)

Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, Ephesians 2:19 (NKJV)

There’s an old song that’s titled ‘there’s room at the cross for you’. After repeating the song name twice the second line declares, ‘though millions have come there’s still room for one’… Although I understand the sentiment that the song is communicating, the accuracy of the lyrics are a little wanting. There isn’t room at the cross but there is room in Christ.

The phrase ‘in my Father’s house’ is vital in grasping the full import of this passage. The word here for ‘house’ is actually better defined as ‘household’. So ‘in my Father’s household there are many mansions.’ The word for mansions means dwelling places not extra large houses under construction in the sky somewhere, waiting for you when you enter heaven. It’s not like that.

So let’s go again. In my Father’s household or family there are many dwelling places or residences. Now Jesus was speaking with the New Testament in view. How do we know this? Because this terminology only applied to Jesus in the gospels but would soon become a reality when the Holy Spirit came to live in every believer in Acts and the epistles. Jesus was God’s original dwelling but the Father wanted many dwelling places for His household.

There is one aspect that I want us to zero in on however and it’s found in the latter part of John 14:2-3 when Jesus says ‘I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.’

Again you can see how in English it alludes to the idea of Jesus going to heaven to get everything ready for us, but that is not what Jesus was saying. ‘I go’ means I travel to prepare a place for you. Remember what Jesus said ‘IN my Father’s house. So where did he travel? Into every believer by His Spirit. He also said ‘I will come again’. Remarkable.

Why can we be confident of the inference here? This is why. The word ‘prepare’ means to make ready or to have prepared in advance. Think of this in the light of the finished work of Christ. It shows us that God has made room in Christ for the whole world not just a select few. Now Christ is a place, a person and a union and unity between God and man.

This is huge! Anyone who receives salvation and is born of the Spirit, is brought into the environment of Christ. Then we know that Jesus Christ comes to live in us and we become one with the Father and the Son. Jesus stated ‘that where I am you may be also’. Where is He? In us. Where are we? In Him.

Jesus said in John 17:23 ‘I in them and you in me—so that THEY may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.’

Which they? Everyone who comes into Christ and Christ dwells inside them. He is the resident of the residence and He, the Father and YOU are the occupants of the dwelling.

‘Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.’ John 14:23

Hebrews 4:3 says of God, ‘For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’ ” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.’

What works? Everything that was necessary for God to be in every dwelling place so that where He is, there we will be also in Christ. It is a spiritual, inward expansion that makes His family big enough to contain everybody.In His mercy it is still going on and nobody has missed out on their invitation to become a part of God’s growing family while we’re alive and living in the days of His amazing grace!

APPLICATION

Read John chapter 14 with the new perspective you have gained about what is meant by the phrase ‘in My Father’s house’ and know you are a member of God’s own household in Christ.