John 16:32 “ The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.” Today's episode talks about how Jesus did not leave us alone. He sent us the Holy Spirit to live inside us every single day. God didn't leave Jesus alone on that cross and He won't ever leave you alone either! Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
You Are Never Alone, The Father Is With You Too!
John 16:32 “ The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.”
I saw this verse or the verse right after it in at least two places this mornings so I think I am supposed to talk about it. The first place it came up was in the notes of my prayer group meeting from last week and then again on someone else’s facebook post. The verse directly after this one, John 16:33 says, “ I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” Jesus told us in the verse above that the time had come when his disciples were going to leave Him alone and yet they didn’t have to worry because He wouldn’t be alone, His father would be with Him. In the next verse He said that He told them this so that they would have peace. I wonder if they remembered this in all the chaos of the next few days? I wondering if they did have any peace when they saw Him suffering knowing that although He seemed to be all alone, He wasn’t. Jesus did all He could to prepare the disciples for His death and resurrection.
Although Jesus is saying these things to the apostles, He is not just saying them to the apostles, He is saying them to us too. I think He is letting us know that when we turn away, when it seems like we have abandoned Jesus, He is not alone, He is with His Father. We are not alone either. When Jesus went to be with His Father He asked His Father to send the Holy Spirit down to be with us, and to never leave us. When we are going through hard times, when we feel as though we are alone, we must remember that we are never alone. We have the Holy Spirit, living inside of us and that gives us so much strength. I think we all underestimate how much strength we have with the Holy Spirit living inside of us. Have you ever taken time to consider what it means to have the Holy Spirit living inside of you?
I don’t think we really understand the gift Jesus was giving to us. The power and strength He was giving to us. In Romans 8:11 it says, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” Did you know that Jesus, although fully God and fully human, only used his human nature to do all the miracles? He relied on His human natured and the power He received from the Holy Spirit. That same Spirit that empowered Jesus lives inside of you. Isn’t that incredible? Tonight I went to pray with someone who’s husband died unexpectedly. There were 9 of us that went to pray with this friend of ours. We weren’t just going to pray with her though, we were going there to pray for a resurrection. You see the power that raised Jesus from the dead lives inside each one of us. And Jesus said in John 14:12-14 “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”
We will do even greater works than Jesus did because He is with His Father now. So, we were hoping to get to pray over her husband’s body and bring him back as they did in the Bible. Did you know it wasn’t just Jesus that raised people from the dead in the Bible? Peter raised Tabitha from the dead. Elijah raised the son of the widow from the dead. Elisha raised the son of the woman of Shunem. The power to raise someone from the dead lives inside each on of us. We are learning how to use the gifts of the Holy Spirit more and more in each class that we take. So tonight 9 of us went to our friend’s house so we could pray with her and we could pray over her husband. We were unable to pray for her husband as the place they moved him too closed at 4:30 and we got there at 5. We prayed with our friend, for our friend, for her children and for her husband. We prayed for love and for peace to come upon their family and we also prayed that God would breathe life back into her husband. My friend happens to live in Boston. Can you imagine what a spectacular event that would be in Boston, with this Satanic Conference about to kick off and God shows up and raises someone from the dead right in the morgue in Boston. Praise God, that would be amazing! This has happened before. I talked about it at one of the Witness Wednesdays. Someone died in the morning and 8 hours later came back to life, unzipped himself and went home. All things are possible with God.
Going back to the verse above, “The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.” When I think of this verse and I think of my friend, I think about how the Father is with her too. It was very clear while we were praying over her that the Father is with her, He will not leave her alone, He will not leave her kids alone. I hope and pray their dad comes back home. And yet, I know, even if He doesn’t her kids will still have a Heavenly Father who will look out for them and take care of them. They will never be alone! God made that abundantly clear as we prayed over our friend.
The Father never left Jesus alone either. He was right there with Him every step of the way. He was right there on the cross with Him. God won’t ever leave you alone either. I know if feels like you are alone at times, I promise, He is right there with you. Sometimes when we feel the most alone is when we are the closest to Him. I have heard that when you feel dryness in your prayer time, when you feel like you can’t hear Him or you can’t feel Him, this could be right before you break through to a new level of closeness. Keep showing up to prayer time, even when you can’t feel Him, even when you don’t know what to do, even when you can’t say anything, keep showing up. God is there with you. He will never leave you. God was there with Jesus and He is there with you. You are never alone! Lean into Him and know he is there.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we thank you that you are always with us and you never leave us. We thank you for sending your only Son to come down and walk among us and to die for our sins. Lord, we thank you for sending the Holy Spirit to us so that He can empower us and guide us throughout out lives. Lord, I ask that you help each person listening to know the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of us. I ask that you put on our hearts how we can live more boldly with this knowledge. How can we step out and use this power you have given us? How can we use all the gifts you have given us to help build your kingdom? We love you Lord, you have given us so much and we want to give back to you, show us how. Lord, we ask you to keep our friend and her family in your prayers. We ask for you to breathe life back into her husband. You said when we ask, you answer and we are asking Lord. Jesus, You said whatever we ask in Your name we will receive since you are going to be with the Father, so we are asking in Your name, Jesus! We ask all of this in accordance with your Holy will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Please remember to keep me and all those who are on the retreat with me in your prayers this weekend, please keep Boston in your prayers this weekend as there is a satanic convention happening there this weekend, and if you could keep my friend Malinda, her husband John and her children Isabella and John in your prayers. They could really use them right now. I will definitely be doing a Witness Wednesday if God answers are prayers the way we would like Him to weekend with her husband. I look forward to meeting you hear again on Monday. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a Blessed weekend!