I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS

Jesus closed the Great Commission with a promise.

"Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age".

He was giving His disciples the one thing they would need more than anything else to actually do what He was asking them to do, and that is the certainty that they would never be doing it alone.

The mission He had just described was enormous, and the disciples standing on that mountain had spent three years watching Jesus do things that no human being could do in their own strength. His promise was that everything they had experienced of Him in those three years was still available to them in every moment of every day for the rest of their lives, because His presence was changing form and not withdrawing.

Hebrews 13:5 carries the same promise in the words of the Old Testament.

"I will never leave you nor forsake you."

The ground of our confidence in the mission is the unbreakable commitment of the One who sent us to stay with us every step of the way, and that is the note on which the Great Commission ends, with the certainty of a Companion who has promised to go with us to the end of the age and has never once broken a promise.

REFLECT
• In what part of your discipleship journey have you been feeling alone, and how does the promise of Jesus speak directly into that?
• As you close this plan, what one step of obedience will you take this week, trusting that He goes with you?

PRAYER
Lord Jesus, I take You at Your word today. You said You would be with me always, and I choose to believe that as a reality I am going to live by. I go because You go with me, and that is enough. Amen.

TODAY'S READING: Matthew 28:20; Hebrews 13:5