Where Jesus is, there is heaven. What is the essence of heaven? The immediate presence of Jesus. So when he says, ‘I go to prepare a place for you,’ isn’t the essence of what he is saying: I go this night through death for you, and I go Easter Sunday morning out of death for you, so that I myself might be your living dwelling place. I am your room in my Father’s house. And I am not yet prepared to receive you there. I must die. I must rise. I must be glorified. I must intercede for you. And when I have done that, then I will be ready. I will come and take you to myself.

We often read the Bible as if it were fundamentally about us: our improvement, our life, our triumph, our victory. And as a result we treat it like a book of timeless principles that will give us our best life now if we simply apply those principles. We treat it, in other words, like it’s a heaven-sent self-help manual. But by looking at the Bible as if it were fundamentally about us, we totally miss Jesus–like the two on the road to Emmaus. (Luke 24) In fact, unless we go to the Bible to see Jesus and his work for us, even our devout Bible reading can become fuel for our own narcissistic self-improvement plans.

So, if we read the Bible asking first, ‘What would Jesus do?’ instead of asking ‘What has Jesus done’ we’ll miss the good news that alone can set us free.

Truth is not a teaching. Truth is a Person.