“Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” (John 14:23). Jesus Christ promises that if we love Him and keep His commandments, then both Jesus and God the Father will come unto us and make their abode with us. What strikes me about this is that the abode that includes Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and us is a collaborative effort. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ make Their abode with us, and we make our abode with Them. Their abode is our abode. Our abode is Their abode. Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ would not consider their home complete without us, and neither should we consider our home complete without Them. This was the first thing that struck me about this verse, but I was curious why Jesus Christ used the word Abode, and not House or Mansion as He does at other times in the same chapter. The word abode simply means the place where one lives. However, it is ultimately descended from the Middle English biden, which means to stay, linger, wait expectantly, hope for, undergo, endure. If we look even further back, it is ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhei̯d- which means entrust or trust. The reason that I bring this up is that *bhei̯d- is also the ultimate source of our word for faith. So, in the end, we put our trust in God and God puts His trust in us. We show our faithfulness towards Him, and He shows His faithfulness towards us. We wait upon and place our hope in and endure all things for our Heavenly Father, and our Heavenly father waits upon and places His hope in and endures all thighs for us. We make our abode with Him, and He makes His abode with us. I often imagine enduring to the end as clinging to an iron rod at the top of the mountain in the middle of a hurricane hanging on for dear life. Sometimes it is like that. But sometimes enduring to the end is making our abode with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and feeling completely at home and at peace. I know that our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ’s promise to come unto us and make Their abode with us is real. I hope that we can all renew our efforts to keep the commandments and show our love and our faith and our trust in our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ so that we can each make an abode with Them that we will never want to leave.
