My Room

5 min read

12 “He will show you a large room upstairs, all furnished. Make preparations there.”
13 They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.
— Luke 22:12-13

I’m reminded of something else that Jesus said to His disciples right before He was crucified. He said,

2 '“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4  You know the way to the place where I am going.”
— John 14:2-4

Jesus is preparing a “room” for me in the Father’s house, and faith in Christ is the “way” to get there. In a way, Jesus is making preparations for us, but we ourselves need to make preparations as well. Every day, we must prepare our hearts for His crucifixion, resurrection, glorification, and returning.

We must prepare our hearts daily by making the gospel of Jesus Christ the very basis of our lives.

The Apostle Paul put it this way:

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
— Philippians 2:12-13

I must never think of my salvation as being finished when I confess Jesus as my Savior and Lord. I must “work out” the salvation that God “works in” me, as Oswald Chambers said.

And this is not “salvation by works.” The Holy Spirit convicts my heart to fulfill the good purpose of God to fill the earth with His glory in Jesus’s name through God-fearing, God-honoring, God-worshiping, God-loving communities and families, the church.

If I neglect the good purpose that God is working in me, He does not reject my salvation and put me back on the fast-track to hell. But He will discipline me so that I will learn to “work out” my salvation.

There can be no greater calling for my life, no greater peace and joy, than to live for the purpose of God. God blesses us in many ways, and He has given us many things to enjoy. But if I look for the purpose of my life in those blessings rather than in Christ—if Christ becomes just an accessory or a hobby, fading into the background of my life—how trivial my life would be.

I make preparations where Christ has sent me in His sovereign grace, to work out the gospel of grace every day of my life.

Father, as we enter Passion Week, fill me with the Passion of the Christ—to know the passion that send Him to the cross to save my soul. And lead me with Your might hand to work out the salvation that You have worked in me. In Jesus’s name. Amen.