Let not your hearts be troubled; you 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 to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.     John 14:1-4 NKJV

I have taken some really nice trips in my day and I am grateful to God for allowing me to take these journeys and to see the wonder of His creation. The worst part of any trip, however, is the preparation. I have often wished that I were wealthy enough to have people pack for me. To be honest, I hate packing. I’m not such a fan of unpacking either.

Unfortunately, I don’t have someone to pack for me, so I have to do it myself. I usually start by making a running list about a week before hand. As I pack, I check the items off my list. I have to take into consideration where I am going, what the weather will be like, what activities I want to participate in, and how long I will be staying. That’s a lot for my small brain to consider, but I have no choice.

We also have no choice in preparing for heaven. I can’t even imagine how awesome heaven will be, but I know that the preparation to get there will not always be easy or even enjoyable. The worst part is that the things we do to prepare to go to heaven are things that go against our human nature.

Instead of hating our enemies, we are supposed to love them, bless them (not curse, bless), pray for them according to Matthew 5:44. And even when the world is going nuts, we are not to focus on that, we are to focus on God and His righteousness and trust Him to take good care of us and provide all we need according to Matthew 6:33.

And regardless of our circumstances, we are to produce the fruit of the Spirit. We are to exhibit love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control as we are instructed in Galatians 5:23-24. We all know that’s not always so easy to do.

Most importantly, we are to do as Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-39, we are to love the Lord with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind and we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

We spend our lives preparing for the greatest journey we will ever take. You are packing for eternity, be sure to get it right. There won’t be any stopping off at Walmart to get anything you left behind. We won’t bring any earthly goods with us, but our souls must be ready for the journey.

We prepare by surrendering our lives to Christ. We trust in Him and do our best to obey Him. We live according to His will. We treat others as we would like to be treated.

Jesus never tells us that preparing for this journey will be easy. In fact, He tells us in several Scripture passages that there will be trouble. And sadly, He tells us in Matthew 7:13-14 that we must enter through the narrow gate, and the way there is difficult and few will find that gate.

I encourage you today to be well prepared for this is the most important journey you will ever take. It brings us into eternity. In order to choose our eternal accommodations, we must prepare for the journey while here on earth.

Have a great day!