Jesus said, just before He returned to Heaven, that He was going to prepare a place for us and that He will come back for us so that where He is, we shall also be. For the believer, that is an extremely powerful promise; we shall have an everlasting party with the Lover of our souls, no less.
How are we preparing for the party? Not, as some cultures do to this day, by burying gold and other precious metals with the body. King Tutankhamun, you may recall, was buried this way. Fortunately for him, grave robbers did not get to his burial site as they increasingly do these days and so we are still able to exhibit his mummified body with all its gold. Others are not so fortunate, even the one who was entombed in a Hummer – thieves merely waited for the funeral ceremony to end and dug up the vehicle and drove away in it. What eventually became of the body is anybody’s guess.
However, what happens to the body is none of our business since we know that it will eventually return to the dust from which it was taken, regardless of its burial finery. What really matters to us as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ is what happens to your soul after you die. That brings us back to the question, how are you preparing for that everlasting party with Jesus? Peter, writing to the believers, asked them a similar question Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness? (2 Peter 3:11 New King James Version).
Right there, in his question, is the answer for being invited to attend the forever party with God. Godliness. That is the garment you need to put on in order to be admitted into the party; it is also the gift that you bring for Jesus, the Chief Celebrant. To fit into this party, you need to be like your host. Therefore, your first step in preparing for the eternal party is to daily seek to be like God. Your next step and this is not that much different, is holiness, defined as total obedience to a holy God. You prepare for eternity by being holy like God. In Peter 1:16, we are told that God said, Be holy, for I am holy.It is possible to be holy, or else He would not have charged us with that responsibility. We simply need to ask for help from the Holy Spirit. Maranatha!