Has Jesus Prepared An Upper Room For You?
Good Morning Friends,
It is the place of the first and the last supper…a place of humility filled with the power of washing another’s feet. It is a place of sorrow but also praise, thanksgiving and rejoicing. It is that place of fellowship and service anointed with prayer. It is the place we meet in our hearts and minds to share our faith. It is the habit of daily prayer and study with friends that equips us for whatever life might bring. Has Jesus Prepared An Upper Room For You?
Scripture: Then David gave his son Solomon the plan of the vestibule of the temple, and of its houses, its treasuries, its upper rooms, and its inner chambers, and of the room for the mercy seat; and the plan of all that he had in mind: for the courts of the house of the Lord, all the surrounding chambers, the treasuries of the house of God, and the treasuries for dedicated gifts;
1 Chronicles 28:11-12 (NRSV)
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away. When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.
Acts 1:12-14 (NRSV)
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.”
John 14:1-4 (NRSV)
Message: Whenever a Christian visits the Holy Land one of the places he wants to visit is the Upper Room. There were so many significant things that occurred in the Upper Room. It was in the Upper Room that Jesus and the disciples celebrated the Passover together and Jesus gave to us The Lord’s Supper. It was in the Upper Room that Jesus spokes the words of encouragement recorded in John 14.
It was to the Upper Room that the disciples went after Christ ascended into heaven. It was in the Upper Room that the strategy of our redemption was formed. The first mention of an upper room was as part of David’s directions to Solomon for the building of the temple and this is significant in it connection to our experience and worship of God.
The problem, and maybe it is not really a problem, is that there are at least five sites that claim to be the Upper Room. Maybe it is better to think of the Upper Room as not so much a physical place as a place in our mind and spirit reserved for experiencing God.
Pray we have an Upper Room experience. Pray
the strategy of Jesus be in our lives bringing comfort and renewal. Pray that we spend time with Jesus in prayer that manifests itself in the power of the Holy Spirit moved to action. Pray that Jesus prepares a place and purpose in us and for us that will glorify God. Pray we enter the Upper Room on the countdown to Pentecost and then take the Upper Room to the Streets. Pray we realize that the Upper Room is anywhere we encounter the living God. Pray that on the way to this place of the heart, this place of intimacy with God, we pray and in faith, embrace the tension of faith, in the hopes this dynamic process will help each of us find our way home to the paradise of Our Father’s House.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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