Jesus will take all His people to the Father’s house. He gives you His word on this, and He will do it in one of two ways.

If you die before Christ comes, He will take you to the Father’s house without your body: “We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). You will receive a new body when He returns.

If you live until Christ comes, He will take you to the Father’s house in the body, which will be transformed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor. 15:51).

Either way, if you die before Jesus comes or you live until He comes back, it is Jesus who is taking you to the Father’s house.

Paul tells us how: “The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thes. 4:16-17).

Jesus is coming back for us! It may or may not be in your lifetime, but He will surely come. What a day that will be. Come, Lord Jesus!

Can you begin to imagine how Jesus will fulfil His promise to take you to heaven?

We are not to imagine Jesus working around the clock to get heaven organised before the second coming. If He can create the cosmos out of nothing with a word, then He can get heaven ready for believers with a single command.

When Jesus says that He is going to prepare a place, it means that through His going, the place will be prepared. He is going to the cross; He is going to the grave. He is going to die; He is going to rise. And it is through His death and resurrection that He opens up the way for us to enter the glory of the Father’s house.

Imagine you’re playing in the Rugby World Cup Final. You’ve just been passed the ball, and for a moment, the pitch opens up in front of you—there’s a real shot at a length-of-the-field try. The crowd is cheering and your heart pounds as you begin to run. But then you see them—massive defenders coming at you—their names are Law, Sin, and Death. Then there is another one—bigger, meaner, and uglier than the others—Satan himself. There is no way you can get past these guys. They stand between you and the try line, and you know that they will flatten you before you get there.

But then—out of nowhere—a teammate comes running towards them. They are looking to take you out, but your teammate comes and takes them out, opening your way to the try line. This is what Jesus has done for us on the cross. “I go to prepare a place for you.” Sin and death can no longer keep you out!

In your own words, what does it mean that Jesus went to prepare a place for you?

Where do people get the idea that if you follow Jesus you can expect a life that is free from failure, disappointment, and loss?

This is precisely the opposite of what Jesus Himself said. Jesus confronted His disciples with the realities of life: “In the world you will have tribulation” (16:33). Then He established their hope in another world: “I go to prepare a place for you” (14:2).

If your hope is established in this world, you will be shattered by failure, disappointment, and loss. What are you going to do when you experience a loss that cannot be replaced in this world, a disappointment that remains for a lifetime, or a failure that changes the course of your life?

Jesus is establishing His disciples in a faith that can stand through the misery of personal failure, the sorrow of gut-wrenching disappointment, and the pain of irreplaceable loss.

But, in order to do that, Jesus must establish their hope in another world: “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). Here’s our hope: “In fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (15:20). Jesus’ answer to our failure, disappointment, and loss lies in the Father’s house.

Don’t we have the Holy Spirit now? Doesn’t Christ say that the Spirit is with you and in you? Yes, and the Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing what is to come.

Where is your hope? Is it based in this world or in the world to come?