Orphan Christians
One of the great tragedies of the modern church is that so many Christians live like orphans.
Jesus said, “I will not leave you as orphans … I will come to you … I will reveal myself to you” (Jn.14:18,21,28). His intention in the upper room discourse (Jn.14-17) was to make sure the disciples knew they were not going to be on their own after Jesus returned to His Father. He wanted them to know that although the relationship was going to change, it was not over.
Yet many people today live as if Jesus’ main goal was to leave us a new book to follow and then He went back to heaven to see how well we would do. The best we can hope for is to figure out the principles that are buried in the text and try as hard as we can to follow the rules.
But that is not the abundant life. And that is not what Jesus had in mind for the children of God. He did not leave us to flail around on our own. Nor was the Holy Spirit ever meant to be someone we could only imagine was helping us try hard, like some “may the force be with you” kind of guy.
God wants us to know what it means to be in an interactive relationship with Him. And He made it as clear as He possibly could. My prayer is that we will pursue this relationship with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and come to know the love that He has for us.
Only then will we be able to live like children of the King and not like orphans.