“If you love Me, keep My commands. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to help you and be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long the world will not see Me anymore, but you will see Me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you.” John 14:15-20
Jesus wants us to live in this realization: He is in His Father, we are in Him, and He is in us. This is the life the Father has given us and it is a blessed life.
Jesus knows everything we go through because He also experienced life on earth. The Son of Man had friends and family and community; He also endured temptation, affliction, and mistreatment. But every step, Jesus knew He was not alone – He was in His Father and the Father was in Him.
“Do not believe Me unless I do the works of My Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” (John 10:37-38)
Now He tells us that we are in Him and He is in us. If this is true, what can come against us? Of course the same forces that oppose Jesus can oppose us, but in Christ we cannot be defeated.
And why should we be anxious? If we are in Jesus and Jesus is in us, we should be more confident than the sparrows who do not worry about their next meal. “Are you not much more valuable than they?” In Christ, we are safe in the Father’s hands.
But what will I accomplish in life? What good can come from this realization? “You will bear fruit,” Jesus promises… and we should believe Him. We can trust the Gardner as we live in the Vine.
“I am the true Vine and My Father is the Gardener… I am the Vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:1, 5
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:37-39