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Viewpoint from Colin Wooden 24/10/2025
 Colin Wooden
Mount Pleasant Gospel Hall, Lowestoft
and
volunteer at the Great Yarmouth Seafarers Centre
A Place for You
"The circle of zimmer frames in the television lounge, with the hideous floral carpet and the plastic daffodils reeking of air freshener, has a space waiting for every one of us" This was the last sentence of an article in a local regional newspaper a few years ago, appealing for a 'major rethink on our welfare state', by a retired teacher. To date, things do not seem to have changed much!
 Although immobility and ill health comes with age for many, there is a place that outweighs and outshines the 'space waiting for every one of us' mentioned above. When the Lord Jesus was talking to His disciples in the upper room, He mentioned that in His "Father's house" there were "many dwellings". He was probably referring to the fact that, although there were a few rooms for the accommodation of priests and Levites in the main temple structure while they carried out their religious duties, the accommodation in His "Father's house" was limitless. The disciples would have been familiar with the idea of the Lord's coming kingdom on earth, but the concept of dwellings in His "Father's house" left them with more questions than answers. The Saviour, was, of course, referring to that heavenly realm. When Jesus went on to say "I go to prepare a place for you", is it possible He was thinking of the cross and the preparation for our salvation that would be necessary before we could enter into that inheritance? We shall never understand what that preparation involved when the Saviour "endured the cross"; when He "bore our sin in His body on the tree". It wasn't the pain and agony of suffering the secured our salvation, but the receiving of righteous judgement for sin meted out on Him by a holy God during the three hours of darkness
If there was a hint of the cross in Jesus' first statement, then surely there has to be a clear indication of resurrection, as well as a promise of return for every believer, in His following words, "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also". It is so encouraging to know that the "space waiting for every one of us" who are Christians, will be glorious beyond our imagination, because it will be, as Jesus said "Where I am"
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