ICS Daily Devotions
God Wants To Be With Us

John 14:3 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.

We believe that though we die physically, we will continue to live with the Lord in eternity. Jesus was going to prepare a place for us and will come for us. This is what we are hoping and longing for when Jesus comes back.

Jesus was speaking about going to heaven while He was still ministering on earth. He was alive. He was preparing them for the things to come and what to expect. He also promised the disciples that He would come again to receive them. We are the beneficiary of this teaching because we have the full counsel of God’s Word. Jesus had to die before He was able to proceed to prepare a place for us. He had to rise from the dead, too. We know that Jesus spoke with authority and confidence regarding life after death. In fact, He is the only one who claims that He is the way, the truth, and the life that leads us back to God. Jesus knows the way back to the Heavenly Father.

Jesus gave a very comforting assurance for us being present with Him in His glory. This is the faith of the believer that we will be with Jesus when we die. We are going home one day! Jesus said that ‘where I am, there you may be also.’ The word of Jesus was filled with love expressing a plan to spend eternity with us. God wants us to be where He will be.

It is difficult to find this kind of love in this world because man operates in phileo love, which is a conditional kind of love. We will love the person when we feel we are being loved. Even if we are loving that person proactively, we will grow tired when the person is not responding after a period of time. There is a desire to end things quickly because we live in a very busy and selfish world today. We hardly have time for ourselves. Neither do we have much time for our loved ones because we have been pushed to do the the so-called urgent things rather than giving priority to the important things in our lives.

When it comes to loving someone, we would not just want to just spend a short moment with them.  We would want to spend our entire life with them. We would not concentrate on the shortcomings of the person but always think of the best. In fact, we will always plan ahead regarding how to spend time with the person whom we love. We will cherish, nourish, and love them.

John 3:16 (NKJV) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Agape love is different. It is an unconditional love and God is the origin of this love. God wants to spend eternity with us because He loves us. He knows that we are sinners and unable to use our own strength to make ourselves right with God. In fact, God sent forth Jesus to die for us on the cross while we were yet sinners. God’s desire is for us to be
with Him after departing from earth. It is the result of God’s unconditional love that we can be so thankful for. If we believe, we will spend eternity with God!

Series: Resurrection Sunday