John 14:1-4-“Let not your heart be troubled; you 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 and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
A Sunday School teacher who had taught her class well asked them the question, "If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would I get into Heaven?" "NO"! the children all answered.
She ask again, "If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would I get into Heaven"? Again, the answer was "NO"!
Well," She continued, "then how can I get to Heaven?" In the back of the room, a 5 year. old boy shouted out, "You gotta be dead"!
I go to prepare a place for you-when you have company, you make sure the room is ready.
He didn’t go to heaven to prepare a place, He went to the cross to prepare a place.
I will come again-It was promised I would be born and know I’m promising to return.
There was a story about a father who dropped off his little boy at a street corner, and told him he would be back in twenty minutes after taking care of some business. The father's car broke down, and he wasn't able to get back to his son for four or five hours. The son waited on the corner by a store that whole time, and the panicky father had no way of phoning him. He didn't get back until eleven o'clock at night, and the boy was rocking back and forth on the sidewalk whistling a tune. The father pulled up to the curb, hugged his son, and said he was very sorry. The boy replied, "What are you sorry about? You said you were coming."
Where I am, there you may be also-We shall be with our Lord forever who has, saved us, forgiven us, delievered us from the bondage of sin, death and hell, He has cared for us day by day.
This should be the very thing that our heart longs for, because this is the very longing of His heart, the very thing which He prayed so intensely for to the Father:
John 17:24- "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me."
In my first film series, "Focus on the Family," I shared a story about a 5-year-old African-American boy who will never be forgotten by those who knew him. A nurse with whom I worked, Gracie Schaeffler, took care of this lad during the latter days of his life. He was dying of lung cancer, which is a terrifying disease in its final stages. The lungs fill with fluid, and the patient is unable to breathe. It is terribly claustrophobic, especially for a small child.
This little boy had a Christian mother who loved him and stayed by his side through the long ordeal. She cradled him on her lap and talked softly about the Lord. Instinctively, the woman was preparing her son for the final hours to come. Gracie told me that she entered his room one day as death approached, and she heard this lad talking about hearing bells. "The bells are ringing, Mommie," he said. "I can hear them."
Gracie thought he was hallucinating because he was already slipping away. She left and returned a few minutes later and again heard him talking about hearing bells ringing. The nurse said to his mother, 'I'm sure you know your baby is hearing things that aren't there. He is hallucinating because of the sickness."
The mother pulled her son closer to her chest, smiled and said, "No, Miss Schaeffler. He is not hallucinating. I told him when he was frightened -- when he couldn't breathe -- if he would listen carefully, he could hear the bells of heaven ringing for him. That is what he's been talking about all day."
That precious child died on his mother's lap later that evening, and he was still talking about the bells of heaven when the angels came to take him. What a brave little trooper he was!
An unknown author once said, "As a boy, I thought of heaven as a city with domes, spires, and beautiful streets, inhabited by angels. By and by my little brother died, and I thought of heaven much as before, but with one inhabitant that I knew. Then another died, and then some of my acquaintances, so in time I began to think of heaven as containing several people that I knew. But it was not until one of my own little children died that I began to think I had treasure in heaven myself. Afterward another went, and yet another. By that time I had so many acquaintances and children in heaven that I no more thought of it as a city merely with streets of gold but as a place full of inhabitants. Now there are so many loved ones there I sometimes think I know more people in heaven than I do on earth."
