Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Heaven
May 27th, 2007
Weekly Bible StudyHugh W. Davidson
Categories: Commentary;Exhortation

In John 14:3 Jesus said, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” This verse tells us that Jesus is not going to send an angel to get us when our time comes to leave this world but that He is coming back to meet each and every one of us Himself.

To give you a sense of how Jesus feels about our home coming, imagine if your parents or one of your children were away for a year or two and then one night they called and said, “We’ll be arriving at the airport tomorrow night at seven o’clock.” Would you say, “Well, that’s good to hear, why don’t take a taxi and if we’re not home we’ll leave a key under the mat.” Well, that’s absurd. You would make sure you were at the airport an hour before they arrived because you’d be excited to see them and Jesus has the same attitude. Listen, He’s more excited about our getting to heaven than we ever could be, because He loves us and He knows how much we’re going to enjoy ourselves in a place where’s there’s no sin and none of its effects.

When Jesus spoke about heaven there was some confusion and one of his disciples and asked Him to explain. It says, “Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?” He was saying, we don’t know where heaven is and we have no idea of how to get there. And I think he had a legitimate problem and that’s why Jesus answered him verse 6 by saying, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” In other words, you don’t have to know how to get there or where to go because I’m coming to take you there.

Have you ever gone to a strange place and asked someone for directions. They start telling you where to go and how to get there but they can tell by the look on your face that you don’t have a clue as to what they were saying, so they say, just follow me and I’ll show you the way. And when it come time for us to go to heaven, we don’t have to worry about anything because Jesus says He’ll be right there to take us home.

The gospel message almost sounds too good to be true and it is too good but it’s also true. There was a story that was on the news a while back about a couple who had their taxes done by H&R Block and they were automatically entered into some kind of a contest where the prize was a million dollars. There were seventeen million entrees in the same contest and when the draw took place this couple received a call telling them they had won the million dollars and they politely hung up and thought, that was some kind of a gimmick to get your credit card and they forgot all about it. A few days later the company called back but they politely told them they weren’t interested and hung up. Then they received information in the mail but they thought it was useless advertisement and they threw it out. The husband told his wife it was some kind of scam and they ignored it. They received another call from the executives at H&R Block but they hung up on them too. Finally, someone from the company went to visit them but they wouldn’t even let them in the door. At last, they were contacted by the Today Show and they realized it was for real and they were invited to the show where they received the cheque for a million dollars.

Mark Twain once said, “The only one who likes change is a wet baby” but a change is what we all need. And we all need a changed heart that only comes about when we repent or turn from our sin and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our savior.

There’s a tombstone in an English village that says,

Here lies a miser, who lived for himself,
And cared for nothing but gathering wealth.
Now where he is and how he fares,
Nobody knows and nobody cares.

This might seem like a terrible way to describe someone’s life and yet we all know people who have lived their entire lives for self and sad to say a few of them may even claim to be believers. And let’s face it, everyone can put on a great show for the world but only the Lord can see behind our smile.