32 DAYS TO PENTECOST

TEXT:  JOHN 14:15-21

¹⁵If ye love me, keep my commandments.

 ¹⁶And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

 ¹⁷Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

 ¹⁸I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

 ¹⁹Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

 ²⁰At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

 ²¹He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

KEY TEXT:  John 14:18  “…He shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever…”

REFLECTION:  The disciples were facing mind-boggling circumstances and the Lord Jesus knew it. (He always knows what we are facing.) Over the course of the next few weeks this small band would gather for the Last Supper, pray in Gethsemane, see the Lord arrested, crucified, and buried, witness his resurrection, and then stand gazing into heaven as He ascended to His Father.

Jesus said, “I’m going to prepare a place for you, and if I go away, I will come again and receive you to myself.” (John 14:5). It must have seemed hard to believe.  In fact the disciples either weren’t listening, or they assumed that He meant something different that what they heard Him say.  Those disciples!  That happened over and over again.  Several times Jesus told His disciples that he would be rejected, be killed, and rise again on the third day.  But they were shocked when it happened.

In the 14^th chapter of his Gospel, John records seven specific promises that Jesus made to his anxious followers.  He promised:

…to prepare a place for them in heaven.

…to come again to receive them into heaven to live with Him forever.

…that they would do greater works if He returned to His Father in heaven.

…that if they would ask anything in His name He would hear and answer.

…because He lived, they too would live. And,

…that He would pray to His Father, and He would send another Comforter.

The name Comforter is derived from the Greek “Paracleton.” It is word that elsewhere is translated, “Advocate,” “Defender of a Cause,” “Counselor,” and “Mediator.” It is this word that John chose to describe the Lord Jesus in his First Letter “If any man sins we have an Advocate (Greek: “paraleton”) with the Father.”

Now we see the Lord’s promise in a fuller light.  The Holy Spirit—the Comforter—would bring far more than consolation. He would bring instruction, intercession, and influence.  Christ had been with them.  The Paraclete would be in them. 

What a promise.  What a presence!

PRAYER: Our Heavenly Father, The Promises you have made and kept sustain us in a world of vain words and broken promises.  Hallelujah!  What you promise, you perform! To God be the glory.  We pray that the Spirit of God—our Comforter, our Advocate, our Intercessor, our Defender, our Counselor, our Sanctifier—would fill our hearts to overflowing today.  May we be filled with “all the fullness of God.”  And may we be channels of blessing to those we meet today.  In the name of Jesus, Amen. “Our Father, &c.”