What is it about your home that makes it feel like home to you? Is it
your favorite photographs hanging on the wall? Is it the way the carpet
feels under your feet as you walk down the hall? Is it your favorite chair
placed purposely by a window that holds your favorite view? Is it the
flowerbeds that adorn the face of your home you have lovingly planted
over the years? Perhaps it's the lingering aroma of coffee brewing in
the kitchen, left behind to greet you when you return home from running
errands. In any case, I'm sure each of our answers would be very different
and interesting to note.
Along those same lines, in what way do you sometimes feel that this world
is not your home? We can be surrounded with all of our favorite things
and feel a sense of security being among them and yet, when tragedy comes
knocking at our door or hits somewhere close by, how much do all these
things about our homes comfort us when we are upset? Who or what is most
comforting to you when your heart is troubled? Turn with me to the book
of John chapter 14 and lets just look at verses 1-4 today in keeping with
this train of thought…
Let not your heart be troubled: ye 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 to prepare a place
for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I
am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
Jesus spoke these words to the disciples for the purpose of settling their
emotions about His soon departure. The realization that He was going to
be leaving them was quite a blow. Jesus was pointing them to those things
that should, could and would most certainly comfort their troubled hearts!
The very foundation of this whole chapter is actually the first phrase
found in verse 1, "Let not your heart be troubled..." In other words,
don't let your heart be confused, disturbed, upset. Christ didn't want
the disciples to respond this way to troubled times. And ladies, He doesn't
want us to either! What troubles your heart today? Here Jesus stirs up
the disciples' faith in God and their faith in Him with thoughts of a
home that is being prepared for them. I think it will do our hearts good
today to join them in this focus, for we live in troubled times and it
is easy for our hearts to become disturbed and upset in such unsettled
surroundings.
How did Jesus want his disciples to respond to troubling times? He starts
out with saying "believe in God, believe also in me." Place your confidence
in us, your trust in us, is the point Jesus is emphasizing here. Would
you say that is your first response to troubled times, dear lady? How
do you usually handle those worries that weigh you down? It is easy for
us when we are troubled to turn to other things in our life and place
our confidence there, find strength there, for support, for help, for
security etc. However, such false trusts can only make life more insecure
for us! Some of us trust in man, some trust in riches and some trust in
weapons... Some even trust in themselves! But our heavenly Father is where
we are to place our confidence, our security, our help - our faith - in
troubled times.
Psalm 118:9
It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.
1 Timothy 6:17
Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded,
nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God....
Psalm 44:6
For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.
Proverbs 28:26
He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool...
As we look at verse 2 of our main text, we see that Jesus stated that
they should also find comfort in troubled times with the fact Christ is
going to prepare a home for them. Where is that home to be? In His Father's
House! What a home - a heavenly home! A home for God's children… Jesus
was telling His followers that Heaven is a REAL place and that such knowledge
should be comforting to them. Is it comforting you today, ladies? Can
you look toward Heaven and find comfort in its reality? There are many
who do not think that Heaven is real, that Heaven is only here and now.
What comfort, what hope can there possibly be to such a one in troubled
times with nothing in which to look forward??
Psalm 42:5
Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me?
hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.
For the Christian, God has given us eternal homes, being prepared right
now, with each of us in mind! Are you looking forward to getting "home",
to that place where we will find true freedom from troubled times? I sure
am! Revelation 21-22 tells us it is a home minus sickness, death, fear,
sorrow, crying, pain, night, etc. It is a place of no more troubles!!!
What a wonderful home it will be, for it is God's House, it is where Jesus
sits today at the right hand of the Father, and we will get to enjoy it
forever! Now, that is real security! What blessed assurance for our anxious
hearts, amen? It's all true - for Jesus said if it were not so, He would
not have told us. Do you believe Him, dear lady? If so, then how does
it make you feel to know that Jesus is preparing a place for you in His
Father's house? I hope it melts all your troubles away, for it was intended
to!
In verse 3, what did Jesus tell His disciples that He would do for them?
What promise did He make them, that is also a promise we can claim today
for ourselves? He said, "I WILL come again..." This is the promise that
brings us hope! The emphasis that Jesus is placing here is not only on
our eternal dwelling place, but also on the prospect of being with Him,
with our Savior face to face! He said, "...that where I am, there ye may
be also." This is a clear promise of the Lord's return for His people.
Praise the Lord; my heart is comforted in that promise! I can look beyond
my troubles today and find hope for a better day, for I will one day be
with Jesus! All those times you and I longed to sit and talk with Him
face to face will be behind us and we will be able to do it for real!!
I can't wait for that day! One thing though… That verse said, "MAY be
with me." Will all people be in Heaven? Those of us who are saved will
be, because we have trusted in Jesus Christ for payment of our sins and
asked Him to be our Savior.
Verse 4 says, "And whither I go ye know, and the WAY ye know." Jesus disciples
knew the way to Heaven, as do all those that are saved. Are you finding
comfort in your salvation today, ladies? I hope so for you've been spared
from an eternity in a godless hell!! No matter how bad our lives may be,
no matter how troubling it appears that things could get down here in
this world, we will never have it as bad as hell, amen? But there are
still those who do not know the way... One important approach we can take
to overcome the tendency for our hearts to become easily troubled is to
focus on the lost souls all around us who still need to know Christ as
Savior. Will you tell them what Jesus said in verse 6 of this chapter?
I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but
by me.
There was a day when this truth comforted every one of your troubled hearts
that called upon the name of the Lord Jesus for salvation - remember that
blessed day? Why not make it possible for another to have such a day in
their lives as well! We have much work to do and being involved in the
Lord's work is the best way you can keep your own heart from being troubled
by this old world and it's wicked ways! Not only that, but while Jesus
is preparing a home for you, it is one of the best ways you can prepare
to be with Him! You ARE preparing to be with Him, aren't you Christian??
If so, how? I can't think of a better way to get ready to spend an eternity
with Jesus than reaching the lost!
Let not your heart be troubled - let it be filled with faith in God and
His Son, let it be filled with the hope of Jesus soon return for us, let
it be filled with the knowledge of Heaven, and let it be filled with the
peace in knowing how to get there! Then take what God has comforted your
troubled heart with and pass it along to those who are looking elsewhere
for what only God can give them!
God Bless,
Pam
Isaiah 60:1&2
Copyright 2000 Pamela A. Iannello
Revised 2003
