When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. John 14:3

 

Together. It’s a beautiful word that expresses something important of the heart of God.

We were meant for the togetherness of relationship. As a poet once recounted, “Day by day and night by night we were together—all else has long been forgotten by me.”[1] But just as distance is a barrier to human togetherness, so our sins are a barrier between us and togetherness with God.

The God of the Bible is an altogether holy God—no sin can stand in His presence. Yet He wants us to be together with Him—He created us for relationship with Him. Scripture says that all of us have sinned (Romans 3:23), so in our sins, togetherness with God isn’t possible. Yet, God provided a way for the barrier of our sins to be destroyed by Jesus’s death in our place. “Christ was offered once for all time,” the Bible says, “as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many” (Hebrews 9:28a).

God wants you to escape Hell. But more than that, He wants you to be with Him forever, because that’s how much He loves you. On the night before He was crucified, Jesus told His followers, “When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am” (John 14:3). To the thief crucified next to Jesus–who cried out to Jesus as he was dying, saying “Remember me when you come into your kingdom,” Jesus replied, “”I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise'” (Luke 23:43).

Just as that thief was forgiven, there’s nothing you’ve ever done that God won’t forgive. When you cry out to Him for forgiveness, that same assurance is yours. Together forever. It’s what matters to God.

[1] “The Walt Whitman Archive.” ONCE I PASS’D THROUGH A POPULOUS CITY. (Leaves of Grass (1891–1892)) – The Walt Whitman Archive,. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.