“I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU!”

John 14:16-24                           (ESV)

“16 And I will ask the FATHER, and HE WILL GIVE you another HELPER, TO BE WITH YOU FOREVER,

17 even the SPIRIT of TRUTH, whom THE WORLD CANNOT RECEIVE, because it neither sees HIM nor knows HIM. You know HIM, for HE dwells with you and will be in you.

18 "”I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU” as orphans; I will come to you.

19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. BECAUSE I LIVE, YOU ALSO WILL LIVE.

20 In that day you will know that I am in MY FATHER, and you in ME, and I in you.

21 Whoever has MY commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves ME. And he who loves ME will be loved by MY FATHER, and I will love him and manifest MYSELF to him."

22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to HIM, "LORD, how is it that you will manifest YOURSELF to us, and not to the world?"

23 JESUS answered him, "If anyone loves ME, he will keep MY word, and MY FATHER will love him, and WE will come to him and make OUR home with him.

24 Whoever does not love ME does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not MINE but the FATHER’S who sent ME.”

Celebrating the time that JESUS entered HIS Creation to live a perfect life, die a substitutionary death, and overcome death, hell and the grave is a wonderful experience.  However, when JESUS was promising “I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU”, HE should have removed all fear and doubt from our lives as well!  Knowing that we have THE CREATOR of everything that was made (Colossians 1:16) abiding inside of us should make us humble to begin with, but also confident because HE is guiding and directing our lives!  

Now I have not been able to live for HIM as I want to.  But the Apostle Paul was in a similar position.  In 1 Timothy 1:15 he writes “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that CHRIST JESUS came into the world to save sinners, OF WHOM I AM THE FOREMOST”, and in Romans 7:19 “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing”!  

Why don’t I live a life that is totally committed to living for CHRIST, especially since HE has promised “I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU”?  Again, the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 7:24-25 “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to GOD through JESUS CHRIST our LORD!  So then, I myself serve the law of GOD with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”  

Living in the flesh is not something that pleases me, no more than being physically overweight!  JESUS said “I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU”, but HE doesn’t say we will always follow HIM!  HE has used my weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9) for HIS Glory more times than I care to admit!  “For the sake of CHRIST, THEN, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10).  As long as I am Glorifying CHRIST and HE says “I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU”, I too will be content with my weaknesses!!!