Marching On

​Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am,
​there ye may be also. Joh 14:1-3

Jesus was about to go to the cross, suffer and die. He had just been betrayed by one of his own, even as he sat at the table with his brethren. In this atmosphere of sadness and despondency, he knew they at table with him would be left like sheep without a shepherd after his death. 
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Lifting his gaze upon them, he discerns the sad, dejected state of anxiety in their faces, and speaks these words of comfort. He discloses his purpose in going, not as a final parting, but a further mission; in preparing a permanent place for them, to abide with Him forever, a home in heaven. 

With these words he placed seeds of hope, and faith, that would endure beyond the horror of the coming cross, and these seeds would remain. Satan would not be able to destroy what Jesus had instilled in them in the three years of ministry, and what they had witnessed while they were with him, and watched him daily as he ministered to the people and taught them. 

These words would solidify the bond of love, and relationship with them, that even death could not destroy. The memories of the miracles he had performed, and the integrity of his daily life, lived before them, would sustain them, even in the coming darkest hours; and beyond. A quote by Spurgeon brings clarity to this:

"He will place us eternally where He is that we may be with Him. Can we not now, once for all, dismiss every fear in prospect of the endless bliss reserved for us?" (C. H. Spurgeon.)

As we, His people in this day and hour look out on the troubled world scene we face daily, these words of comfort, hope, and the promises he gave to the disciples that night at supper with them before his death, are meant for us also. 

Another aspect of the Lord's comforting, described in Biblical Illustrator:
Relief comes by belief. To be able in some overpowering grief to throw the weight of one’s care upon another and to trust wholly in that other’s help is an eminently satisfying process; while the trustless soul is without the least gleam of comfort. In these times of daring denial and of timid doubt it is well to be reminded that in the great crises of life—poverty, bereavement, affliction—denial is mockery and doubt is impotence, and that only an honest and hearty belief will secure sufficient solace. Christ solicits our faith on the ground of:

A prior acknowledgment of the Divine. “Ye believe in God.” Christ desires nothing contrary to already existing and inborn Godward conceptions of the soul, but merely that we enlarge those conceptions so as to include Him.

The defectiveness of our belief apart from Him. “Ye believe in God;” yes, but that is inadequate, it needs supplementing. The most anxious moments of humanity have been spent in searching's after such a view of God as would enable man to approach Him without dread. Humanity’s great longing has waited until Christ for its complete satisfaction. He has extracted from the thought of God all that is calculated to give pain and introduced everything calculated to give comfort. “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.”

His personality. Trust must repose on a person to be trust at all. Christ asked for immediate trust in Himself, for with that would come a hearty belief in all He said and did.

Finally, in these few verses, Jesus instills principles which are meant for all of us, who have put our trust and faith in Him:

"Christ intends us to have “strong consolation.” Hope is as important a contribution to comfort as faith; the two together, exercised rightly, never fail. Without a future what is the present worth? An English nobleman once asked himself why there should be a future existence, and answered, “Because, on any other hypothesis, the world would be a piece of magnificent nonsense.”

Christ, implying human immortality, reveals heaven. He bids the troubled be comforted by directing their hope to the positive existence of an absolutely untroubled state. Heaven is rendered attractive to us as much by its exemptions as by its possessions (Rev_21:4). Christ does present also a positive view. Heaven is a home. “In My Father’s house!” A house is not necessarily a home, but a father’s house always is, or ought to be. A happy earthly home is the nearest approach to an adequate conception of the life of heaven. “My Father’s house” is a happier home than the happiest of earthly ones." (excerpt  from Biblical Illustrator)

A good analogy that brings life to these passages is something General Sherman is reported to have said:
​“One difference between General Grant and myself is this: I am not afraid of dangers that I can see, but he is not afraid of dangers that he cannot see.” Any good soldier of Jesus Christ has a right to absolute confidence as he goes forward, even in the dark. For the Saviour says to him, Whatever comes, “Let not your heart be troubled.”

​As a good soldier of Jesus Christ, we can put these promises from Jesus in our hearts, and keep them embedded there, and march on, to the finish line.

2Ti 2:3  Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 
Lorna Couillard