ESOCS Devotional 19 April 2024 – The Other Comforter
MEMORY VERSE: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.” John. 14:16
TEXT: JOHN 14:12-END
12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. 13 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
19 “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. 20 At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. 21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and [f]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 and said to 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 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.
25 “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. 28 You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I.
29 “And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe. 30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me. 31 But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here.
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In the King James Version, it is translated as “Comforter”- One who is with you to strengthen you, to fortify you. And this Spirit will be another Comforter. Another than whom? Who was the first Comforter? It was Jesus Himself. Jesus had been their Counselor, their Comforter, their Strengthener. He was the One who had guarded them and kept them and empowered them and taught them. Now, there would be another who would come, another of the same kind. Jesus said, “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you” (John 16:4b RSV). They didn’t need to know these things then. But now, as He is going away, He tells them that He has provided another Counselor who will strengthen them and minister to them. So, the primary mark of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is that He does with us what Jesus did with His own disciples – He strengthens us.
The second characteristic is that He would be the Spirit of truth. What does that mean? Truth, of course, is reality. Truth is what exists, what really is there. The Spirit of God has come into our lives to lead us to understand what is there. There are many illusions in life, things that we think are true but which aren’t true at all; principles upon which we act, expecting certain results, which don’t appear. But the Spirit of truth has come to help us to understand life as it really is, to dispel these illusions and strip off all the falseness. He is the unending foe of every pretence, of every fraud, and of every bit of phoniness (1 Corinthians 2:9-10b KJV).
The third characteristic, Jesus says, is that the world cannot receive Him. The “world” means all those who are what we would call secularists or humanists, those who try to look at life without making any provision for God or for God’s operation; who think of life as consisting merely of what can be observed and learned and acted on; and who think they don’t really need God in order to live. Our world is being rapidly secularized. Education is losing its Christian perspective and is taking on a wholly secular point of view. Those who hold that viewpoint, Jesus says, cannot know the deep wisdom of God, and cannot find the secrets of life.
The fourth characteristic, Jesus says, is that the Spirit would operate from within the believer: “You know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.” The primary reference here undoubtedly is to His disciples.
- You need to become a disciple of Jesus through His word in the Bible before the Holy Spirit will live inside you.
- Lord, there is nothing I cherish as your presence in my life. Help me to attain the sacred divine relationship with you.
Further Reading: Jeremiah 11:18-20; Lamentations 2:11-17; Romans 5:6-11
ESOCS Devotional 19 April 2024
