Jesus Wants Us To Be With Him

I’ve been meditating on the Upper Room (John Chapters 13 – 17) this year; I suppose if there is a Biblical place where I’m prone to live it is the Upper Room, moving from foot-washing (the Outer Court) to deep intimacy with the Trinity in John 17 (the Holy of Holies).

It struck me the other morning how deeply Jesus desires to be with us. Consider:

“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,” John 14:3.

“Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am…” John 17:24a.

Jesus begins His extended Upper Room discourse expressing His desire to be with us, He concludes this discourse in prayer to the Father and again expresses His desire to be with us. Jesus wants us to be with Him; He wants to be with us.

Jesus’ language throughout the Upper Room is intimately relational – He speaks of loving and abiding and obeying and learning and hearing and seeing and praying. He concludes His prayer to the Father with these words:

“…and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them,” John 17:26, emphasis mine.  

Jesus wants the Father’s love to be in us, and He wants to live in us – Jesus wants to be with us. Do we want to be with Him?

Do I want to be with Jesus today? Not in some indefinable nebulous sense, but do I want to live today’s hours and minutes with Him? Do I want to be with Him as I make decisions and speak words and interact with others? Do I want His presence to be with me as the air I breathe?

Perhaps more importantly, do I realize how much Jesus so deeply wants to be with me? Do we realize how greatly He desires to be with us? Do you know how much Jesus wants to be with you?

Jesus came, lived, died…bearing our sins, bearing all that we’ve done and all that we are…so that we might be with Him.