Make Yourself at Home
“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him,
and we will come to him and make our home with him.” John 14:23
In the past 4 years, we’ve called technicians to our home to make repairs: once, in the dead of summer when our A/C gave up, and then, in the dead of winter, when our furnace quit. In both situations, whether sweating or shivering, I was pretty desperate for the problem to be solved asap so I could get back to normal life.
When he came, I didn’t say to the repairman, “Make yourself at home - here are the keys. Wander around, check out each room, and stay a while. The pantry is yours, the fridge is yours. If you feel like redecorating, go for it.” No. I didn’t invite him to settle in; I just needed him to work on one thing, and I pointed immediately to it. I was not trying to make him comfortable. Actually, I was expecting him to make ME more comfortable.
And I wonder how closely that parallels our relationship with God? We invite Him to fix something that’s broken so we can be comfortable again and get back to our normal life, but we’re not asking him to come make himself at home.
That God is willing to make himself at home with us should be shocking.
God, at home with me?!
God himself smiling and sighing, “Ah, now this feels like home”?!
Jesus’ statement in John 14:23 follows a promise he had made just a few verses earlier: “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” John 14:2
The Greek word in verse 2 for rooms is the same word used in verse 23 for home (Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words). It means abode or dwelling-place.
While we wait for Jesus to prepare a home for us, we can live in such a way that God makes his home in us, here and now. Jesus explains how: it’s obedience to His word that signals genuine love, flinging the door open, handing God the keys, and inviting him to settle in.
Obedience to His word doesn’t bring God the Holy Spirit into my life, but it’s the invitation for him to be more than a repairman. Obedience lovingly says, “Come check out each room of my heart, stay awhile, renovate and redecorate, and do whatever it takes to make yourself at home.”
