My eternal home

Yesterday someone asked about our move, then said, “When all is in order, then it will feel like home.” I told her that the first time I saw it, even before we made an offer, this place seemed like home. However, today’s reading reminds me of something Jesus said:

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. (John 14:1–3)

Years ago, I was grumbling about tedious housework. God used these verses to remind me that my Savior knew all about homemaking. He was building a most glorious place — a forever home with no sorrows, no bad memories, no troubles or tears. My task is not quite like that, but knowing He is doing this replaced my grumbling with a glad heart.

Today I read it again with joy, also realizing another parallel. For the past few weeks, our home has been upside-down, not just this one we are now working on to settle in, but the former one that went through a whirlwind of decluttering and downsizing. We are still doing that homemaking and even though I am an organized person, these rooms do not look like it — yet.

Apply that to the world around us. Contrary to many thoughts about ‘heaven’ and it being ‘out there somewhere’ the Bible says God’s people will experience eternal life in a restored new home here:

For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. (Isaiah 65:17)
For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain. (Isaiah 66:22)
But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3:13)
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. (Revelation 21:1)

The NT also says this odd thing about where I live now:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus… (Ephesians 2:4–6)

In a spiritual sense, I am already home, seated with Jesus in an eternal place. While the sense of this is hard to explain, it does describe the reality that this being at home with Him is experienced before actually getting there. I know where that home is, just like I knew this new address was my home before we actually purchased it and moved in. And it is perfect for us right now, even though there are boxes to empty, touch-ups needed, pictures to hang, and furniture that is not quite in the right place. It is still already home.

PRAY: Jesus, the sense of being home is lovely regarding this physical house, and much like the sense of knowing where my heavenly home is and what it will be like. I am so blessed to know that You, the perfect Homemaker, are preparing a place for me, a place perfect in its design and layout, but even more so because it is where You are — and I will be with You, perfection personified, for eternity.