| Devotional Hours with the Bible |
Chapter 23 |
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Jesus said also to His disciples, “I go to prepare a place for you.” They thought His dying was an interruption of His work. The Messiah they had conceived of was to live and be a glorious King, conquering the world. Suddenly they were told that soon they should not see Him — He would be gone. They were bitterly disappointed. All their homes were now to perish. Jesus comforts them by telling them that the reason He was going away was to prepare a place for them. Nothing was going wrong with His Messiahship. They had misunderstood it — that was all. He could easily have escaped from the plots of the rulers, the betrayal of Judas, the arrest by the temple officers. But hat would have been to fail in part of His work.
The reason He was going away was that He might continue and complete His work in heaven. “I go to prepare a place for you.” The thought is very beautiful. How does Christ prepare places for us? We need not understand, but it is a sweet thought to know that He thinks of us as you think of a dear guest who is coming to visit you — lovingly, and prepares for your coming. You good women, when you are expecting a friend you love very much, make the guest room just as tidy and beautiful as you can. You think of the friend’s tastes, and prepare the room with this in mind. You put up a picture you think will please him. You lay on the table the books you know he will like. You gather his favorite flowers and place them on the dressing bureau. You do everything you can to make the room beautiful so that he will feel at home in it the moment he enters it. Christ is preparing a room for you.
There is something else here. “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” This is more of the work Jesus went away to do for His friends. First, He would make ready for them, build a home for the, prepare a place. Then, when all things were ready, He would come for them and take them home. That is what He does when we leave this world. Men call it dying, but dying is a gloomy, forbidding word. Jesus said, “Whosoever liveth and believth on me shall never die.” What we call dying is really only Jesus coming to receive us unto Himself. Why, then, should anyone dread to leave this world? It is the Master coming to tell you that your place in the Father’ house is ready for you and that He has come to take you to it. When Stephen was being stoned he had a beautiful vision. He saw the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right had of God. As the mob stoned him, Stephen was calling upon Jesus Christ and praying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (see Acts 7:58-60). It was the Savior coming for His servant. The place was ready for him. His work here had been short, but it was all that had been allotted to him. His departure was tragic — he died at the hands of a religious mob; but it mattered not how he was taken away — really it was Jesus who took him away — receiving His spirit into strong, gentle and secure hands.
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