John 12:26 “Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.”

This whole section is so loaded with deeply meaningful verses! I feel like I could preach for days on it. However, this verse expresses what I think is the ultimate goal of every true servant of God: being with Jesus. We can have all sorts of goals, and many are quite noble and worthwhile. However, once those goals are achieved, what then? This goal is eternal, just as Jesus is eternal. Not only that, the amazing thing about this goal is that it is achievable in part right now. As the song says, “Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before.” We can “be with Him” even as we go about our daily lives, however mundane they might seem. We are indeed “created to do good works which God has prepared in advance for us to do,” (Ephesians 2:10) but the doing isn’t as important as the being, the abiding. In the Upper Room Discourse Jesus talked a lot about abiding, our abiding in Him and His Word abiding in us and the like. One reason He did that was that we tend to lack stability. As it says so famously in Isaiah 53, we are like wandering sheep, failing to recognize our dependence on the Shepherd. The most marvelous thing about heaven is that we will indeed be with Jesus for eternity, with nothing to separate us.

I will never forget a taste I had of this several years ago. I was in a small prayer meeting with three brothers in Christ. We had been singing to the Lord together, and I don’t remember whether this was during the singing or the praying, but I felt such an overwhelming sense of joy that I was blown away. I quite literally said to the Lord in my heart, “If You have anything further for me to do here You had better back it off a little,” because I felt that my physical body would give up and I would be transferred straight to heaven. That experience gave me such an anticipation of heaven that I don’t think I’ll ever be afraid of physical death! It has caused me to respond to the death of other believers in a way that has surprised and even shocked others. The police thought I was weird, the way I acted after discovering one of the believers here had gone on to heaven, when I went to pick him up to bring him to the service. He was 82 and lived alone, and I knew he was delighted that the Lord had said it was time to come home. His body was stiff and cold, but I knew that he was experiencing inexpressible joy. (1 Peter 1:8) Even most of the Christians had trouble rejoicing for him. Our sorrow at separation would be much less if we understood better what it is to be with the Lord! To be honest, I don’t look forward to however long Cathy and I will be separated, whenever one of us goes first, but I have absolute assurance that such sorrow will be totally forgotten when we are together again with our Lord. Being with Jesus is the goal!

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You that I do enjoy life right now, but thank You especially that I know that what is to come will make all of this totally pale to insignificance. May I not just rejoice in Your plans for me, but be active in drawing others into Your plans for them, so that the plans of the devil may be defeated and many brought to salvation, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!