Today’s passage is just this: John 14:16 “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another to be with you forever,...”, but reading the chapter as a whole, there is SO much more.

The purpose of the devotional today is to reassure us that leaders don’t have to rely only on their own intuition about vision and direction - they have a Helper.  In reality though, as is the case when we pluck a verse out of the Bible without proper context, we miss the bigger point that is being made.  Jesus is teaching us that God will be with us, true.  He is also teaching that we will hear God the best when we position ourselves to hear God...when we are ready to listen.

Looking at the verse immediately preceding the highlighted verse, we see a verse that says this: John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knowns him.  You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”

Then, again in John 14:21 “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.  And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

Now, it is important to differentiate between salvation and the presence of the Holy Spirit.  This isn’t a salvation discussion - salvation comes by placing our faith in the work of Jesus, that He died on the cross as a punishment for our sin and thereby becomes our own sacrifice in place of ourselves...that’s salvation, and this has nothing to do with that.  This is a separate issue - this is whether or not we are able to receive the Holy Spirit, to have God really living in us and through us.  What does Jesus tell us it takes to have that happen?  Well, we must act right?  What is acting right?  The more I read about this, the more I am convinced that God is about direction, not intention, and not destination...direction.  When we are growing, pursuing God (like we talked about yesterday), and actively confronting sin in our lives, we are positioning ourselves to hear from the Holy Spirit.  If we are fighting in that way, there isn’t any need for the Holy Spirit - it is God’s gift to us to help us become more like Jesus.

Today I am reminded that God IS interested in our behavior, but it isn’t for the sake of salvation - it is for the purpose of His Helper...when we position ourselves correctly, in growth, in development, in pursuit of living more like Jesus, we can expect that God will send this Helper to give us a vision for our future, and to guide us where He is calling us.  That’s an exciting promise.  And, I can definitely say that the times when I have felt the closest to God in my life are when I have run the hardest in terms of living like Jesus...and it feels really good.