A
Comforter Like Christ
Nevertheless
I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go
not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send
him unto you. John 16:7.
The Comforter
that Christ promised to send after He ascended to heaven, is the Spirit in
all the fullness of the Godhead, making manifest the power of divine grace
to all who receive and believe in Christ as a personal Saviour.
With the
consecrated worker for God, in whatever place he may be, the Holy Spirit abides.
The words spoken to the disciples are spoken also to us. The Comforter is
ours as well as theirs.
There
is no comforter like Christ, so tender and so true. He is touched with the
feeling of our infirmities. His Spirit speaks to the heart. Circumstances
may separate us from our friends; the broad, restless ocean may roll between
us and them. Though their sincere friendship may still exist, they may be
unable to demonstrate it. . . . But no circumstances, no distance, can separate
us from the heavenly Comforter. Wherever we are, wherever we may go, He is
always there, one given in Christ’s place, to act in His stead. He is
always at our right hand, to speak soothing, gentle words; to support, sustain,
uphold, and cheer. The influence of the Holy Spirit is the life of Christ
in the soul. This Spirit works in and through every one who receives Christ.
Those who know the indwelling of this Spirit reveal its fruit—love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.
The Holy
Spirit ever abides with him who is seeking for perfection of Christian character.
The Holy Spirit furnishes the pure motive, the living, active principle, that
sustains striving, wrestling, believing souls in every emergency and under
every temptation. The Holy Spirit sustains the believer amid the world’s
hatred, amid the unfriendliness of relatives, amid disappointment, amid the
realization of imperfection, and amid the mistakes of life. Depending upon
the matchless purity and perfection of Christ, the victory is sure to him
who looks unto the Author and Finisher of our faith. . . . He has borne our
sins, in order that through Him we might have moral excellence, and attain
unto the perfection of Christian character.
From
Devotional: Our Father Cares, pp. 210, 211.
