Key Verses: John 14:1-2 

“Let not your heart 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.” 

Death is undoubtedly the hardest thing that all people including Christians deal with. Our parents will grow old and die, we have cousins and siblings who will die unexpectedly and tragically. Sometimes, our own children will die for us, and we even have to deal with the death of our spouse. Death does not discriminate. It comes for all people. At the end of John 13, Jesus told His disciples that He was going away, but here in John 14, He tells them that they don’t need to be anxious or scared about the future. The reason they don’t have to be afraid despite Jesus leaving them is because He is preparing them a wonderful place in heaven. Friends, this is the same reason that you and I don’t have to tremble in fear when our loved ones die and even on the day when death calls our name. Death is not the end, in fact it is the only way to enter into the the new place that Jesus is preparing for us. We don’t have to allow our hearts to be overly anxious and afraid in the face because our Savior is preparing for us a place in the afterlife. That place that He is preparing is a wonderful place that is in the very presence of God, and that is the greatest place to be. 

I know that some of you may be walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Maybe you are very ill, or perhaps you have a loved one who is walking through the valley. You don’t have to be afraid. You don’t have to wonder if you’ll ever see them again if they are dying or if they have already died. If their faith was in Jesus, then they are living in a wonderful new home that Jesus has prepared for them! Friends we don’t have to cower in the face of death or allow anxiety to rule our lives. We have a Savior who is preparing a place for us!