Being homeless or staying at a friend’s house or living in exile can be very hard. One of the things when you stay as an exile in someone’s house is the way people would host you.
Sometimes you end up in a place where actually you don’t even feel comfortable to ask if you can make a cup of tea for yourself or you don’t even feel comfortable to just walk in the house and check out the things and compliment the friends or the tables.
Or depending on the host, sometimes you end up in places where the host is so kind, so generous with a full heart, the host wants you to simply use her or his house as if it was yours. They would give their bed to you so that they can sleep on the floor or they would show you around so that you feel comfortable where to go, what to do. They would do their best that you feel comfortable. They feel you are the best so that you can have a good time together while you are there for a short time.
As I am in exile, being homeless, thanks to a certain people group, being homeless or living in exile makes you feel homesick. But recently, I have seen this in the place I have been staying. It says, “Home is where the heart is”. Home is where the heart is. In Ephesians 3:16-17, it states that the Lord Jesus Christ will settle in our hearts and make it his home: “I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources, he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in our hearts as we trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.” Christ will dwell in our hearts and make it his home.
Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal son of God, the Logic of the cosmos, the one who holds the universe with the power of his word, the one who is identified as Shepherd King, the one who identifies us as his friends will come and dwell in our hearts through his spirit. The spirit will actually enter our hearts, settle down and be at home there. Christ will live in the heart of any human being who invites him, who welcomes him, eternal son of God, the logic of the Cosmos is going to live in my heart if I welcome him.
I think it’s so powerful, it is so amazing. In John 14:23, Jesus says to his disciples, “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them and we will come and make our home with each of them.”
A previous passage in John 13:33, yet Jesus says he is going to leave his disciples: “Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer and as I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for me, but you cannot come where I am going.”
Of course, it is difficult to think why he will say, “I will go and make a home for you.” On the other hand, he just told them he’s going to leave them.
Another verse in John 14:1-3, “There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you so that you will always be with me where I am.”
It is the language a bridegroom is using. “I will go and prepare a place for you and I will come and get you”. He’s promising that he’s going to go to heaven, build a place for them and one day, he will welcome them so that today and 2000 years ago, the disciples, and today, we can welcome him in our hearts. He would come and make a home in our hearts. It is very difficult to understand.
King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Logic of the Cosmos. The one who holds all the universe with the power of his word. Not only going to prepare a place for us and welcome us there. But also will come and make his home in our hearts. As we look at the scripture, we get to see him soon after his ascension. The Holy Spirit has been poured out. The disciples opened their hearts for Jesus to come and make his home.
If you think about it, our heart is dark, dull, dirty. Yet the Logic of the cosmos, the eternal Son of God wants to live in our hearts.
Some of us might remember the first time when you invited Jesus to come and make his home in your heart. It was an amazing entrance. It was an amazing entrance. It wasn’t anything emotional or something, but it was real. He entered the very centre of my soul. He came into darkness and my heart turned into light. He built a fire in my cold heart and banished the chill. He started music there while it had been stillness and silent for a long time, harmony started.
He filled emptiness with his own loving fellowship. I don’t think I will ever regret that I opened my heart to him. Of course, the first step of opening our hearts to Jesus so that he can come in and make his home is that the door needs to be opened. Someone needs to welcome him. Someone needs to open the door. Revelation 3:20: “Look, I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will share a meal together as friends.” He’s knocking. Someone needs to open the door and welcome him.
If you want to know the reality of God and the personal presence of the eternal Son of God at the inner being part of your life, then we need to simply open the door and then ask him to come in as our Lord and Saviour. After Christ enters into your heart in the joy of making a new relationship, you seem to say to him, “Lord, I want this heart of mine to be yours. I want you to settle down here and be fully at home.”
It is the very much same thing with my generous and kind friends when they invited me to, when they were OK for me to stay in their house, they were simply saying, “Treat this place as your place”, it is exactly the same when the eternal Son of God, Saviour of the world comes to enter into our hearts. It’s simply inviting him to make it fully his home. I want you to use it as it’s your own, Lord. Let me show you around and you look around and you feel comfortable.
But the bottom line is, while he is making my heart his home, then open fellowship, perfect new relationship starts as you get to respond to one another’s love. Then, transformation takes place because he made your heart his home.
Hatun and company,
May God continue to bless you and may his peace and joy be yours always. I see that your exile, Hatun, has allowed you to offer various different and creative methods to share your faith. You continue to preach Christ and critique Islam very effectively. It seems to me that God, once again, has taken something bad (your exile) and turned it into something good. His purposes shall prevail. He is an awesome God and I give him all the glory. I continue to pray for you…you are loved dear sister.