Jesus promises to come to us, to not leave us a orphans. He offers hope in that because He lives, we will also live.  Life will bring our share of rejection, betrayal, sadness, crisicism, loneliness, …  Those things are just part of life.  But they are just one side of life too.

These trying experiences are part of the life Jesus went through in his thirty-something years here on the earth.  He felt and experienced all of these things.  When we live with Jesus in our hearts, we are not orphans.  He relates, He knows, He loves.

And because of this love, we are also loved by God.  He promises good for us.  His plans are for us to prosper.  We choose to live as Jesus lived and to love as Jesus loved.  We come to obey His commands out of this love for Him.  As we obey, we come to know Him more – He reveals Himself to us more and more.  It is a beautiful cycle – love more, know more.  We rejoice in this.  Paul wrote about the promise foung in it in Philippians 1:16: “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”  We love, we know.  The promise is yet to come.