Never Without A Home

Photo Credit: Birmingham Museums Trust (Helen Allingham)

(By Theanna Joyce)

I was standing in the airport pickup zone with two suitcases, a purse, and my cat. After weeks of purging clothing, trying to sell furniture on Facebook Marketplace, and packing the remainder away in my parents’ garage loft, these were the things that I moved to Washington with.

It turns out that while I was waiting for my sister-in-law’s car to pull up, she was also waiting, but in a different pickup zone. (I did have a horrifying moment of fear that she had gone to a different airport, but thankfully we found each other shortly after.)

As we loaded the car, she said, “Welcome home.”

Home. Such a small word with such great significance. What does home mean to you? It can refer to your place of residence, the social unit of your family, or your place of origin. Maybe you think of your favorite place, where you feel that sense of home.

Jesus had already told His followers that those who serve Him will be honored by the Father (John 12:26).

For some of you, this word might bring up pleasure at the thought of the home that you have. Perhaps it calls to mind memories of joy and comfort from the home you grew up in. Or maybe, this word feels like a weight on your heart or an empty hope.

Home. We long for a place of love and safety, yet so often the peace doesn’t last, or the ideal falls terribly short.

In John 14, Jesus tells us of a different kind of home that we have to look forward to. He tells His disciples that there are many rooms in His Father’s house and that He is going to prepare a place for them (14:2). This promise extends to us as well. He is getting a place ready for us in His Father’s house! 

What a wonderful thing to look forward to. We know from Revelation 21 that it will be a place of no pain or death, no mourning or crying. All the broken and sinful things of this life will have passed away and we will have life more perfect than we can grasp.

So whether you currently live in a mansion on a hilltop or in an apartment you can barely turn around in, whether you come from the most loving, secure home or from a broken one, rest in this promise. He is preparing a place for you. 

Let this hope settle in your bones and encourage your heart. We believe in God, and in Christ our Lord — and He keeps His promises. 

After Jesus tells them that He would be going away, but that He would be preparing this place in His Father’s house, the disciples are confused — understandably so since they had yet to witness Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. Thomas asks Him about the way there; Philip asks to see the Father. Jesus gently tells them that He is the way, and that anyone who has seen Him has seen the Father. 

Jesus tells them that those who love Him keep His commandments, that He will not abandon them in this life, but is going to send them the Holy Spirit to help them. Then He says something very interesting.

First, He reiterates that those who have and keep His commandments love Him and are loved by the Father. He says, “I will love him and manifest myself to him.” 

Judas (not the Judas who betrayed Him) hears in this statement the distinction between what the world will receive and understand and what Jesus’ followers will enjoy, so he asks, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?”

Keep in mind that this is the world that would crucify Jesus, persecute His followers, despise His ways, and disobey His commands. Of course, there will be a day when He will be revealed to all and the world will be brought to kneel before Him, and every tongue will confess He is Lord. 

But Jesus is not talking about that here. He doesn’t give an answer about future vindication or clear up their confused expectations. Rather, He draws them back to love. 

He says, “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). 

Sisters, as we consider what it means to have a home here and now before we are brought to our ultimate home in heaven, let us meditate on these words. 

The God of heaven and Creator of this world wants to make His home in us. Some believe that this manifestation of the Father and the Son in the believer is through the indwelling Holy Spirit. While the text does not explicitly say this, Jesus mentioned sending the Holy Spirit earlier in the same chapter, so perhaps that can be inferred. 

Regardless of how this occurs, this verse is clear. God is making His home in us. How incredible! How astounding! 

This past Easter season freshly reminded me of the humility of Jesus. He made himself so low so that we could know God, and this truth — that God makes His home in us — reflects a similar reality. The King of kings, who is greater than we can comprehend, the One who reigns from heaven — earth is His footstool! — this God loves us, comes to us, and makes His home in us. 

Sisters, let us worship Him with hearts full of love and gratitude. 

Perhaps for some, this truth doesn’t feel real. Or maybe it used to, but you’re having trouble believing it now. 

Sisters, this truth doesn’t rest on your feelings. On days when your feelings, or anything else for that matter, make you doubt God’s presence, return to this verse and let it chase out the uncertainty.

The first part of this verse claims that those who love God will obey Him. Reading this verse on its own might make us think that God’s love for us depends on our love and obedience to Him. But John tells us in His first epistle that we love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). 

His love is unchanging — it does not increase when we love Him devotedly and obey Him wholeheartedly, nor does it decrease when our affections wander or our actions displease Him. 

Think of the disciples. They were often confused by His teachings and slow in faith. 

Peter denied Him. Thomas doubted Him. They all abandoned Him in His suffering. They did not earn God’s love, and they certainly were not perfect; even in Galatians, we read that Paul had to correct Peter’s hypocritical behavior. 

Yet even though they were not perfect, God was with them. His love was constant, and it still is. 

Sisters, as we contemplate our lives, particularly our love for God and obedience to Him, let us be grounded in the reality of His love for us. In this moment, whether you’re reading this on your couch in your home or on the go, remember that you have a home in heaven being prepared for you, and in this moment God Himself is making a home in your heart.