I was very fortunate growing up in that I always had a place to call home. I was never in doubt as to where I lived or that there was someone at home to welcome me. I didn’t fully appreciate this until I went to work for Nashville Rescue Mission where I have come to know so many, many people who have had times, sometimes extended, where they did not have a secure place to call home.

As a child, I loved to read and had a vivid imagination. As blessed as I was with home and family, I imagined other places to call home that were, at least in my mind, so much better. I confessed during the Operations Bible Study last week that as a child I dreamed of finding out that I was actually a princess and that I was finally going to live in a castle. I also dreamed that “The Millionaire” would come to my door with, you guessed it, a million dollars. I would lay awake at night and think about how I would spend that million dollars, and always near the top of my list– after ten new dresses each described in minute detail with shoes to match–was a red brick house. You see, I had always lived in a white frame house, and I thought that red brick houses were somehow better. Rich people lived in red brick houses. I know, how petty of me. But I’m just being honest.

Most of us do probably dream of better things than what we currently have. It’s really okay to have a picture in our minds of something to aspire to. Jesus was especially good at painting word pictures. And you know what, He even gave us a word picture of how our home will be like in heaven. He promised us, in John 14:2-3 – “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.”

In other versions, the word “mansions” is replaced with “rooms”, or “dwelling places” or “homes”. But I really like the idea of a mansion which is how the King James Version describes it. Heaven won’t be just a room, or an apartment, or any old dwelling place. It won’t be a little frame house, or even a brick house. It will be exquisite, inside and out. It will be more beautiful than we can imagine, and it will be furnished with beautiful things. More importantly, it will be filled with love. It will be home in the finest sense of the word.

What I sensed but did not appreciate as a child was that my home was not my home because of the type of physical structure. It was my home because that’s where my family lived. After we moved from Navy housing, we lived with my grandmother. Then when we moved out to our own home it was my mother, my father, and eventually my two brothers. Even though I dreamed of castles and red brick houses, I knew they would never be home without my family. It’s the same way with our heavenly home. The picture of a mansion is glorious. However, it’s the last part of the passage above that makes Heaven our Home: “… that where I (Jesus) am, there you may be also.”

In last week’s Chaplain’s Corner on Unity, I referenced the church as a physical structure as well as a “body of believers.” In keeping with those metaphors, 2 Corinthians Chapter 5 contains references to both the earthly dwelling and the heavenly home of our souls. Just as the church is really the people and not the structure, being at home in Heaven means being in the presence of the Lord.

“For 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…. Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”

The takeaway? No matter your current earthly status—your current vs your desired living arrangement, your current vs your desired job, your current vs your desired marital status, or any other current vs desired status—put your trust in Jesus. It’s your eternal status that really matters. The Apostle John tells us this, and so does Paul in 2 Corinthians.

The point of this passage from the Gospel of John is reassurance of Jesus’ ongoing love for his children. He and his disciples have just enjoyed an intimate time of fellowship during the Passover celebration (we now call it the Lord’s Supper or the Last Supper), and now Jesus is now trying to prepare them for his death, resurrection, and ascension to Heaven. Even though he will not be with them physically any longer, he will be there for them, and us, in Heaven. He tells them: “‘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 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. And where I go you know, and the way you know.’ …Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” (John 14:1-4, 6).

Trust in Jesus, He is the way Home.

In Christ,

Judy