Jesus said, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23) (NIV)
An easily noticeable and admirable fact in this verse is that Jesus said, that He and His Father wants “to make their home” with the one who obeys His teaching. Jesus didn’t say He and the Father were going to stay in such a person’s house. They were going to make their home with him.
A house differs from a home in that; a house may not really be a home. A home is different. Home is where one is cared for, loved, cherished and nourished by one’s own. A home need not be a house too, for in India where I live, there are the poor, some of whom who live in huts and concrete pipes. No one can or will dare to call huts and pipes, houses but they are homes to families. Homes they can come back to, after work; whatever work it may be, perhaps even begging. A curtain at one end of the concrete pipe and another curtain at another end for privacy and that’s the home for some for decades.
Wherever it be, the Lord said He and the Father were going to make their home with the ones faithful to Him. How wondrous this promise.
Pity the rich and affluent, living in mansions sans Christ and rotting away spiritually in their rebellion to His voice.
A home with the presence of the triune God is blessed. Not that such a home has no problems, but this one has a blessed promise for it.
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” (Psalms 46:1) (NIV)
An ever present Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.
But nothing here is forever though, not even our blessed homes.
King Solomon once wrote,
“Then man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets. (Ecclesiastes 12:5c) (NIV)
Yes, that’s the final destination of all who are born on earth. Sadly for some, this may not be the very thing that they desire though, for they land up in torment in the place prepared for the devil and his cohorts. But for those who have walked the narrow path, what a homecoming it would be with the prophecy of Revelation 21 being fulfilled.
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:3, 4) (NIV)
Looking at it in another way, home now for us is where our spirit and soul live, that is our fleshly body. But that too is a temporary home for our spirit and soul. For this fleshly body will not last long. The Apostle Peter speaking of this says,
“I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.” (2 Peter 1:13, 14) (NIV)
Be that as it may, believers have a glorious promise from the Lord and we read this in the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians,
“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.” (2 Corinthians 5:1) (NIV)
The “earthly tent” here being our physical bodies now and “the eternal house in heaven” being the glorified bodies that we will receive when we enter eternity.
The things that we call “Homes” here and now on earth could be rightly termed “Temporary Homes.” Be it our physical bodies, be it our congregations or be it our shelters where we and our loved ones live. Every believer in Christ is exhorted in the Word of God to look forward, to hope and pray for something more everlasting- “An Eternal HOME.” Praise the Lord.
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