Christ is Coming for You

Among the most comforting words Jesus Christ ever spoke, were those uttered shortly before He was arrested and crucified. As a pastor, I have said these words at virtually every funeral. Thinking of us rather than Himself, Jesus said:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 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? 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” (John 14:1-3).

I have always considered these words as referring to Christ coming to meet us after we pass over to the other side. But I recently suggested to a spiritual woman that she meditate on these words in effort to sense Christ’s presence right now. As I said this, the Spirit informed me that these words also mean, “Christ is coming for you now, so that you and Christ can become one in Spirit in this life, as well as in the life to come.” That would mean salvation is a now event, inclusive of a vivid sense of a lived connection, an ongoing communion with Christ today as well as in eternity. Why put off until death entering into this endless relationship Christ offers today? Why not let tomorrow and today joint together with Christ, in Christ?

Yet most Christians focus on the earthly Jesus who once walked among us, rather than the mystical Christ who is with us right now and forever. We don’t take in Paul’s instruction: “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:16-17).

Today we desperately need to encounter the mystical Christ of John and Paul. To know this Christ is to love Christ. And as Jesus declared, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14:23). That means a home with you right now, not just then. Invite in the Christ who has come back for you.