More Than Enough Room

More Than Enough Room

John 14:1-4

 

¹ “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God, and trust also in Me.

² There is more than enough room in My Father’s home.  If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 

³ When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with Me where I am. 

⁴ And you know the Way to where I am going.”     (New Living Translation)

Today, after seeing the above picture of children in Sudan hiding in caves from their own government's bombs, a friend commented: "I hope God has a mansion big enough for all kids."  This made me think of what I had just seen the week before during my reading for Marcus' Passion Week Passages Challenge:

Jesus told His followers: "There is more than enough room in My Father's home."

It had stood out when I read it, because I read it in a different translation than those I am accustomed to reading (the New International and King James Versions); and now it stood out even more as I read this passage to my friend. 

The NIV reads: "In My Father's house are many rooms."  And the KJV: "In My Father's house are many mansions."  But somehow the NLT's "more than enough room" really hit home.

God is not short in space.  Jesus is preparing places for ALL who trust in Him.  He is our only Way there.

And I like how the NLT translates verse 3: "When everything is ready, I will come and get you."  It may seem like He's taking a long time coming, but things aren't ready yet.  I think He's preparing places for all who are yet to believe in Him.  In fact, in Revelation 5:9, it says: “For You were slaughtered, and Your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

Jesus is getting rooms ready for believers from every people group.  But, as Pastor Dan Trautman talked about in a sermon awhile back, “Jesus isn’t coming back yet, because there are still many who haven’t heard the Good News.”

In fact, according to www.joshuaproject.net, a website dedicated to educating Christians about those people groups still needing to be reached in order to complete the Great Commission: Of the 16,650 people groups of the world, there are still 7,183 with no native community of believing Christians capable of evangelizing their own people.  And of those, there are 4,944 people groups with no active church planting underway. 

Obviously, we Christians still have work to do.  Jesus is getting heaven ready.  But we need to be doing our part to reach people for Christ, not just here in our own area, but in the uttermost parts of the world.  What can we do to help so many? 

1.      Pray for the unreached and for workers to serve among them (perhaps you know a few). 

2.      Give to missionaries and missions working worldwide reaching people with the Gospel of Jesus.

3.      Go yourself, to our own community and beyond, to tell people that… because of Jesus’ death and resurrection… there is more than enough room.

 ~ Respectfully submitted, Jennifer Goodman