Our Home is in Jesus Christ

A couple of months ago, my little family traveled to Palawan in the Philippines to celebrate my daughter Sophia’s first birthday. It was a lovely time of love, laughter, and great food: three things my Filipino family and friends do so well. But, as usual, I was homesick after a couple of weeks. As much as I love Filipinos and the Philippines, I’ve always been a homebody, finding so much comfort and satisfaction in home.

While my temporal home is in Sydney, the Spirit and the Word remind me constantly that my eternal home is in Jesus Christ. In John 14 and 15, Jesus doesn’t hold us at arm’s length or ask us to admire him from a distance. He says our home is with him, the loving and true Vine, who invites us to live where he lives, love as he loves, and rest in his presence, his abundance, his provision, and his belovedness. “Remain in me, as I also remain in you” (John 15:4). The Greek menō carries the sense of staying, remaining, and settling in; the opposite of the passing visit.

During the first few years of my life, we lived with my grandparents, as my parents saved to buy their own house. Once we’d moved to our own house, I never lost the feeling that my grandparents’ home was a warm, welcoming place to return, without ever waiting for an invite. Their home felt like my home. Home is the place you return to without knocking, where your heart is settled and secure, where you belong before you perform.

Sometimes we treat Jesus Christ as somewhere we drop in during a crisis and leave once it passes. A quick prayer to a parent who can help us in time of great need, but once the trouble has passed, we move on. But Jesus offers himself as the address where our whole life can reside.

What home means

So, what is home? Some of us have experienced healthy homes and others abusive or dysfunctional ones. No matter your experience of home, we know that homes where we flourish have certain qualities.

Home is permanence, where you can put your roots down, instead of merely arriving and departing. Home is belonging; people truly know you there, see through your disguises, invite vulnerability and transparency, and receive and love you as you are. Home is rest, where we lay aside our striving and embrace the freedom of putting things down and simply being present. Home shapes you slowly through the ordinary hours—the meals and the conversations, and the laughter and tears—more than the dramatic moments.

So, when we talk about Jesus Christ being our home, we mean he’s our identity, security, and rest all draw from one settled, loving source.

The mutual dwelling

One of the things I love about this image is the way it runs in both directions. We make our home in Jesus Christ, and he makes his home in us. “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14:23).

This is a strange and wonderful reality. God the Father and God the Son together take up residence in our surrendered hearts, through the work of the Spirit, so the indwelling is personal and trinitarian. God’s grace surpasses our efforts, as Christ moves in first, and our abiding is a response to being inhabited, to receiving grace, and to being called beloved. The Spirit is the one who makes this dwelling real and felt within us day by day.

We enjoy a mutual intimacy and a shared life, discovering that our Christian pilgrimage is walking the Way with a near and caring God.

How we dwell

I’m often tempted to believe dwelling is done in dramatic moments of prayer, worship, or belief, and often God is in those things. But, more often, dwelling is built in the small and ordinary returns: the morning turning of attention, the simple prayer as we work, the repeated coming back after we’ve wandered.

Dwelling grows through Bible study, prayer, reading, and stillness. In these daily, simple acts, we show that he is the Vine and we are the branches abiding in him, letting go of our illusions of control, our desire for recognition, our grasping after independence. Instead, we let go and trust the Vine, expressing our dwelling in the ordinary and daily habits and practices of a life kept near to Christ—prayer, obedience, Scripture, surrender, and service. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love” (John 15:9).

We all go through dry seasons, when our abiding is by faith and habit rather than by feeling. That’s the human condition. We always need God’s grace and Christ’s Spirit abiding with us, but in those dry seasons we feel the need more acutely. And God promises to dwell with us through it all.

Dwelling happens in the working day, at the desk and in the interruptions, as well as in the dedicated devotional hours. God cares more about constancy than intensity, more about staying than surging, more about abiding than performing. But we must never lose sight of the truth that we abide and dwell by grace. Jesus Christ abides in us and enables us to abide in him.

The outward turn

Home is meant to be a place of welcome, especially for those who have no home, but also to all people, as an expression of God’s welcome and love. Abiding in Jesus Christ makes us hospitable and generous, welcoming all to the healing of the Vine and to the safety and love of our divine Home.

Jesus promises that if we abide in him, we’ll bear much fruit, showing ourselves to be his disciples (John 15:8). The fruit Jesus promises flows from abiding, from resting in his goodness and love, and from learning to obey the Father’s commands and love as Jesus Christ loves (John 15:5–17). As branches, we bear fruit because we remain joined to the true Vine, Jesus Christ, and to the gardener, our Father and Creator in heaven (John 15:1–5).

Discipleship isn’t a solo pilgrimage or a lonely path. We abide in One who is always near, always calling us beloved. Rootedness in Christ steadies us for the long work of love, justice, and mercy in a restless world. What we receive at home we carry outward, into the church and toward the neighbor, the enemy, the stranger, and our sisters and brothers in Christ. The good news is that a life made at home in Jesus Christ becomes a home where others can meet him too.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash