For Your Good

John 16:7

“But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

Imagine for a few minutes you were one of the original twelve disciples of Jesus. After having spent every day in the very near presence of Jesus for more than three years, you are with Him on Passover eve.

It finally sinks in that Jesus is “going away” after having been told several times before this very evening. Anxiety, worry, concern, fear, and confusion must have attacked them all in various degrees.

Why is He going, and where? Is He really coming back for them, and when? How will they get by until He returns? Will they be able to continue their fellowship, and live the new way Jesus had been demonstrating daily? Jesus had been telling them they would be hated, persecuted, and kicked out of the synagogue. What would happen to them without Jesus?

Then Jesus says it is better for them if He goes away. WHAT?!?!? How could this be possible?

Jesus could only be in one place at one time while He was restricted to His earthly body. But, He explained, He would send another Helper just like Him Who could be with them in every place, at all times, regardless of how far apart they physically might be from one another. It took about fifty-three days, until Pentecost, for this truth to finally manifest. It really was better for them (and us) that Jesus go!

TODAY’S CHALLENGE:

Think deeply about this today.

Dive Deeper: Study John 16.