John 14, “Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would’ve told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you….” What’s Jesus saying? I'm going to go and prepare a place for you. What’s the point of going and preparing a place for you if I’m not going to come back and take you? He’s like, Hello?
He 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.” Where is He? In heaven. We are the ones to change address. Jesus did not say, “Well, in your father’s house there’re many mansions and you are now going to prepare a place for Me. And if you prepare a place for Me, then you will receive Me unto yourself. So where you are, I will also be." He didn’t say that. He said, “I go to prepare a place for you and I will come back to receive you. So where I am there you will also be.” We change addresses, not Him. We are not here to prepare this world for the second coming. The world is going so crazy that at a certain point God will say enough is enough, and He takes us out of here.
I am sure we have all had someone say to us or we’ve said to them, “Don’t worry about it.” But then there is no follow up with the ‘how to” of the instruction. Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled.” The word translated “let” can also be translated as “stop”. He told His disciples to stop letting their hearts be troubled. He then followed with a declaration of His deity when He said, “You believe in God, believe also in Me.” What Jesus was saying was, What you believe about God believe also about Me.
This conversation took place at the Last Supper after Jesus revealed He would be betrayed and that Peter would deny Him three times. He told them to stop letting their hearts be troubled, and that He after He went to prepare a place for them, “I will come again and receive you unto Myself that where I am you may be also.”
The word translated “receive” can also mean "to take away” or “take up.” This was the tool that would allow them to stop letting their hearts be troubled.
Titus 2:11-13
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
Jesus told the disciples that He was going to come again and take them up to where He is. Paul said that we ought to be looking for that too, and even described it as the glorious appearing.
This gives us a very practical tool for dealing with our own difficulties in life. Jesus had told the group of disciples that some painful things were ahead, then immediately pointed their thinking past the moment and into the future.
Philippians 3:20-21
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.
The hard things in life are only temporary. Recognizing this will not lessen the pain of them, but remembering our eagerly awaited future will help us through them. Someday, glorious Christ-like bodies will be ours because we believe in Him. And, someday, He’s coming to take us away to where He is to forever be with Him!
Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus,