But now that he is preparing a place for his people, he has gone to Heaven on purpose to do it. He used to stand still here on Earth and work miracles. But this was a miracle that he could not perform while he was here. He had to go back to his home above in order to prepare a place for his people. What sort of place, then, must it be that needs Christ himself to prepare it?

He might have said, "Angels, prepare a mansion for my beloved." But no, he leaves not the work to them.

Bothers and sister, he will do it well, for he knows all about us. He knows what will give us the most happiness - and what will best develop all our spiritual faculties forever. He loves us so well that, as the preparing is left to him, I know he will prepare us nothing second rate, nothing that could possibly be excelled.

Spurgeon - from his sermon, "A prepared place for a prepared people"

“What, in conclusion, of joy? For that, after all, is what the story has mainly been about. To tell you the truth, the subject has lost nearly all interest for me since I became a Christian. I cannot, indeed, complain, like Wordsworth, that the visionary gleam has passed away. I believe (if the thing were at all worth recording) that the old stab, the old bittersweet, has come to me as often and as sharply since my conversion as at any time of my life whatever. 

But I now know that the experience, considered as a state of my own mind, had never had the kind of importance I once gave it. It was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer. While that other was in doubt, the pointer naturally loomed large in my thoughts. When we are lost in the woods the sight of a signpost is a great matter. He who first sees it cries, ” Look! ” The whole party gathers round and stares. 

But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not stop and stare. They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the authority that set them up. But we shall not stop and stare, or not much; not on this road, though their pillars are of silver and their lettering of gold. ” We would be at Jerusalem.”

CS Lewis, surprised by joy

An old theologian once said, "who chides a servant for taking away the first course of a feast when the second consists of far grater delicacies?" Who then can regret that this present world passes away when he sees that an ternal world of joy is coming? The first course is grace, but the second is glory, and that is as much better as the fruit is better than the blossom. Charles Spurgeon