Come sit here with me and hear what Jesus said to His disciples there in John 13 and especially in chapter 14.
He is busy telling them about the next season that is ahead. About what it will be like after His crucifixion, after His resurrection, and after His ascension into heaven.
He, as God the Son, will no longer be with them physically, as an ordinary man.
That is why He begins to explain it to them in John 14:
“Do not be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would not 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 back and take you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”
Many Christian believers think that Jesus is talking here about the afterlife and about what it will be like after our death and one day in heaven. I don't believe that is what Jesus is talking about here in the first place.
From the context and what Jesus says further in this chapter, especially about the coming of God the Spirit, He teaches them that just as He as God the Son has a place against the breast of the Father and in the heart of the Father, every believer, after the coming of the Holy Spirit in and on God's people, will also discover and experience that God himself is with them and in them. The presence of the Father and the Son, through the indwelling of God the Spirit in them, will be such a reality for them. Every day, twenty-four hours of every day, and every minute of the day!
If you and I read everything that Jesus then tells us about the Holy Spirit and His work for us in John 14 and 16, as well as in all the other 250 verses in the New Testament about this, we begin to understand something about why the coming of the Holy Spirit and His being in and with us as God's people is meant as the power and reality that will make God's people different from everyone around them. Next time, I will talk about this reality of how to experience God as Father, Son, and Spirit every day and every moment of the day as a reality and as truly present in your life.