I Am Because You Are October 14, 2025 Devotional

JOHN 14:2-4 | ² In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. ⁴ And you know the way to the place where I am going.

Jesus uses a concrete image to describe the journey He will go on when He returns to His father following His death and Resurrection. It is a picture drawn from the marriage practices of first century Jews. Engagement was a formal contract between a man and a woman with the binding legal character of marriage. Once betrothed, it was the man’s responsibility to build a dwelling for their future, usually an addition onto the property of his family. This was the place prepared for his beloved. Jesus uses this marriage/love picture in relation to the community of heaven, describing His work to make a place for us in the house of God, His Father. The next life is an intimate experience within the divine family!

Does this picture illuminate the next life for you?

Gracious God,

Thank You for deciding to welcome Your wayward children into Your heavenly home. May we live as those who know death leads homeward not downward into nothingness.

Amen.