I’m not one to travel a lot. I don’t mind being places and enjoying them, I just don’t like the traveling part. God has blessed me with the privilege of visiting the Holy Land four times. I had been scheduled for a fifth trip, and we had twenty-four others from the church also with their names on the list, but we scraped the trip when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, 2023. Once things settle down some more, if those twenty-four people still want to visit “The Land,” we will rebook and have an experience of a lifetime. Once you visit Israel, walk where Jesus walked, connect Bible passages with actual places on which you are standing, you begin reading the Bible with a new zest, a new understanding. My four excursions have deepened my walk with the Lord and have deepened my friendships with brothers and sisters in Christ, many of whom are members of CBC.
John 14 is a wonderful passage in the Bible, and this is where we are spending the next little bit of time. The whole gospel of John is one of the first books I recommend to new Christians. It is written to the whole world and Jesus is presented as the Savior of the world. If you want, now would be a good time to stop reading, grab a Bible, and read it. Then come back to the blog.
Have you ever heard the term “second-hand?” Sure, you have. Second-hand clothes, second-hand car, second-hand textbooks at college. There were many believers that were second generation believers, who believed they were “second-hand Christians.” Why? John’s gospel was written between AD 80 and AD 90. They hadn’t seen Jesus, and most hadn’t met any of the apostles with the exception of John and only a few had even met him. They didn’t get to see the miracles Jesus worked among the people; they’d only heard the stories. They believed they were having to live their lives on what others experienced instead of themselves. We all should respect the faith of our fathers, but each of us needs our own personal faith and our own stories of how the Lord has come through for us time and again. John’s gospel gives this second generation some truth we all need to remember. Two things:
1. Christ is coming again, and we will get to live with Him. John 14:1-6. This little portion of this gospel is one of the top three passages with promises of the second coming of Christ in the New Testament. For the Christians who have lost heart with the burdens they carry, we are told “Let not your heart be troubled:” There are better days coming. Preparation for our eternal abode is being made at this very moment by the Lord Jesus himself (14:2-3). We know we are on the list if we have trusted Christ. We acknowledged our sins and need of a Savior. We asked and immediately, the Lord saved us. One of the great verses giving us assurance of this is also written by the Apostle John. I John 5:13 is a verse you should mark in your Bible with a highlighter. My mom used to circle verses in her Bible which as a kid I thought was neat. “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” This verse has given comfort to tens of thousands of Gods’ people for 1900 years just like a hundred other verses. One day Jesus will come and things will be better. Amen! But what about now?
2. Look at John 14:23. “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” Notice the underlined portion. The tense isn’t future, the tense is present. John was assuring these believers they weren’t second-class Christians. The Apostle Paul had revealed 25-30 years earlier, that we were the temple of the Holy Ghost. One of the proof texts is in I Corinthians 6:19-20. The body of a Christian, anywhere, at all times, is a sacred place because God lives in it. God’s presence is always in us because He lives there. He doesn’t hover above the Mercy Seat as in the Old Testament Tabernacle and Temple. The Holy Ghost hovers in us. While that is a great truth, it is also a sobering truth. It is a constant reminder to do right, you are a “holy” place, act like it. Fred Craddock shared his testimony in his book I bought many years ago called “Cherry Log Sermons.” I’ll give you the highlights of his story. As a kid he had Malaria. Yellow skin and sweaty, taking medicine from the doctor, he had to be quarantined. His brothers and sisters were outside running playing while he wasn’t allowed to leave the house. He was miserable and was making everyone else miserable. Finally, his father came into the room and said a couple of things to him that were hard but needed. One, “There is no way to modulate the human voice to make a whine acceptable.” Two, “Even if you spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair or bed, it can be a full life, a good life.” Why could his father say that to him? Because the father knew that God resided in that body. He was the Temple of God and God’s abundant life was to be had in Fred.
It is my prayer that you realize that you are the “Holy Land.” The Holy Land is where God resides. Do I want you to go to geographical Israel? Yes. I would love for you to travel there, but if you never put your foot on the ground in Israel, you are still a Temple that God himself resides in if you have truly trusted the Lord Jesus for salvation.