Two Essential Ingredients for Home
“In my Father’s house are many rooms. 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, that where I am you may be also.”—John 14:2-3 ESV
The home I remember most from childhood wasn't mine.
It belonged to a family across the street — and what I remember isn't the furniture or the rooms but the feeling when I arrived through the door. As a kid—even though I was a visitor— I felt comfortable there. It wasn't tense. There was love and welcome in it, something that made you want to stay. And stay I did! Sometimes, I would only go home for meals and then go back till one of my parents came to collect me for bed.
Years later as a newlywed, a friend's home gave me the same feeling. It was cozy, unhurried, and designed with the guest in mind rather than as a showcase. I didn't have words for it then, but I know now what I was experiencing: a home that was for something. For people. For rest. For belonging.
Now, as I contemplate the very real possibility of downsizing considerably, I've been wondering lately what makes a home feel that way. I’m convinced that it’s not an issue of square footage. Both these homes reflected the warmth and welcome of Christ who has gone before us to prepare a place for us in the Father’s house. The answer begins not with design but with theology.
So how does God design and furnish a home? Let’s go back to Eden.
The First Home: Intentionality
When God prepared the first home, he filled it with everything his people would need — light, land, food, seasons, beauty, and productive work to do within it. It wasn't a cruise ship, where we are pampered, passive and indulgent. It was a beautiful, purposeful place to live and work and most importantly, to enjoy the company of God and one another.
It’s important to remember that Adam and Eve didn't build or earn this. They were placed into this home which was prepared for them as a gift. It was thoughtfully designed by someone who had their flourishing in mind before they arrived. That intentionality matters more than its floor plan or furnishings.
Thoughtful design is a gift to the people who enter. The home that feels welcoming isn't usually the largest or the most expensive. It's the one where someone has thought about you—not just how much space they’ll need to fit all their stuff—before you walked through the door. Not that this is wrong. But otherness is just as much a consideration as caring for ourselves.
And this is what God did. He’s never stopped doing it. Even now Jesus is preparing a place for us in the Father’s house. He is getting it ready for his beloved bride in mind, that he might bring her back to live with him forever.
The First Coming: Relationship
If you think about it, this thread runs through all of Scripture. We see God's persistent desire to dwell with his people. Just think of the tabernacle in the wilderness — his presence traveling with them, located among them. Then there was the temple in Jerusalem. In both of these his glory filling the house reminded them of his desire to dwell with them, not at a distance like the other deities of the day who sat on their thrones, far removed.
And then, if that weren’t enough, we witness the most amazing moment in the story—when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Pitched his tent. Took up residence. Chose to be located, to dwell with his people in the flesh, to rub shoulders with us as neighbors.
What does it mean that God chose this? It means home is not a lifestyle category. It is a theological one. God has always been about relationship, in a place, with his people. He values being together. He always has.
And Jesus, who had no permanent home during his ministry, carried this with him everywhere he went. He didn't need an address to create belonging. Wherever he was, people felt welcomed.
When Jesus came his intention was not to claim his territory but begin establishing his kingdom. This kingdom did not came in a castle but in His presence. The tabernacle and temple all pointed to his first coming, his literal physical presence with us.
With his resurrection, he promises that he will come to complete the job so that at his second coming we will be with him again, physically— and this time for all eternity. What Adam and Eve enjoyed in that garden home with him will one day be restored. And he promises that while he is away, he is getting that place ready for us.
This then reframes everything we understand about home. Our true home is with Christ. We are already united with Him through the presence of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. Each believer is not only the home of the Spirit but we are also being built into the final temple of his body.
Perhaps this is part of his preparation that he mentions in John 14. He is not only preparing a place, he is preparing us as kingdom citizens—indwelt by the Spirit and built into his temple. We are preparing too as we begin to live our kingdom values in our homes today, welcoming others who are on the outside in.
What Our Homes Represent
If we are members of his body, being built into the temple he is building, how does that impact how we view our lives and by extension, our homes?
Clearly, the two homes I loved spending time in embodied that for me. As Christians, my friends lived as kingdom citizens and represented Christ to me, though I was only a visitor. Both of these homes had a significant influence in my growth in faith—as an unbelieving child and as an adult believer. It is this same ministry I desire my home to have, no matter how much space I live in.
If home is primarily about presence and welcome rather than appearance and square footage, then the woman in the small apartment and the woman in the large house are working with the same essential materials. What makes a home feel like home is not something you can purchase or renovate into existence. It is cultivated — in the heart, by the people who live there, through the quality of welcome they extend to everyone who enters.
I admit, I have wanted the comfort of a larger home. I still feel the pull of it sometimes. But I have sat in small spaces — a cozy Airbnb, a modest living room of a widowed woman or even the dorm room of one of the college girls I worked with— and felt at rest there just as much as a larger home. What those spaces had wasn't size. It was intention. They were prepared to welcome and care for those who visit just as much as for those who live there.
Intentional and relational: that is what reflects Christ. He intentionally planned Eden. He dwelt in relationship with his people in the incarnation. And he is preparing a place for us now in a place that will be even better than Eden, where we will live with him forever.
Until that day, let us seek to reflect that same intentionality and relationship in whatever space we have been given.
The size of our home does not determine its welcome. We do.
From My Home to Yours
Think of a home you have visited that felt genuinely welcoming — not because of its size or beauty, but because of something harder to name. What was present there? Sit with that memory and ask: what is one quality of that home I can cultivate in my own space this week?
