God is with you

You are not alone. God's Word makes this very clear in many places.

If we grasp this in faith and rely on it, we can go forward courageously. God's presence and His assistance are invaluable.

In the New Testament we read that God is by us, that God is with us, that God is for us, and that God is in us. Have you ever thought about this? It really strengthens our faith to keep these truths in mind and to live in the awareness of them.

For this reason, we’ll now take a closer look at these points to see what they mean for our lives!

In the Old Testament we already see that God was with His people. We see that He stood by them and that He blessed them by His presence. Take Hezekiah, for example. He’s given a wonderful testimony in the Bible.

2 Kings 18:5 says, “He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him.”

Even more, Hezekiah clung to the LORD. He was a faithful man who treasured the word of God and put it into practice. Do you know what the consequence was? We read that in verse 7:

“And the LORD was with him; wherever he went out, he prospered" (2 Kings 18:7).

God rewarded this man's trust, devotion, faithfulness and obedience with His rich blessings. We can be sure that the Lord will be with us as well when we trust Him and live in devotedness for Him.

Let’s move into the New Testament, we are shown a whole new dimension of God's nearness and His help.

It begins with the birth of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. He’s called Emmanuel. And that means “God with us!” 

God revealed Himself in the Old Testament in a consuming fire on Mount Sinai. And this very God became Man. He lived in the midst of men. And He was so close that people could see, hear and touch Him. When He was finally about to return to heaven, His last words to His disciples in the Gospel of Matthew are: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt. 28:20).

This means: He would not let His disciples down. He would not fail them. And He would not abandon them, as it’s once said in the Letter to the Hebrews. He would continue to be with them and stand by them.

At the very end of the Gospel of  Mark, it says of the disciples, “And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them.” The Lord continued to support them from heaven. He helped them in their ministry!

This also means that “God with us” has a much deeper meaning for us than for the Old Testament believers. We know a Person in Heaven who 100% understands us. He understands us because of His own experiences, because He Himself lived here as a Man on earth. This wonderful Person has promised to be with us always - every day!

Moreover, in Matthew 18:20 the Lord has given us the firm promise that when two or three gather to His name, He will be there in the midst. So He Himself has promised us His special presence when He is the centre of our coming together as a church. 

Even when we cannot see Him with our natural eyes - faith takes God at His word and believes what He promises.

And when we go through difficult trials, we should know with certainty that the Lord is with us. That He will carry us through. Paul experienced this more than once. When he was alone in captivity in Acts 23, the Lord unexpectedly came to him and encouraged him.

In the book of Isaiah it was already said: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Is. 57:15).

Even when Paul was facing judgment again towards the end of his life, he experienced this. All his friends and acquaintances had left him, but he says: “But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me” (2 Tim. 4:17).

When the well-known missionary David Livingstone travelled to Africa for the first time, he was accompanied to the ship by some friends who wanted to say goodbye to him. Some were very worried about him. One tried to persuade him at the last minute not to make the trip after all. But Livingstone was convinced that it was God's will for him. He opened his Bible and read the Lord's words to his worried friends, “I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:20).

Then Livingstone went on to say, “It is the word of a Gentleman of the most strict and sacred honour, so there's an end of it!”

Many years later, when he gave a lecture at the University of Glasgow, he said the following,

“For would you like me to tell you what supported me through all the years of exile among people whose language I could not understand, and whose attitude towards me was always uncertain and often hostile? It was this: ‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world!’ On those words I staked everything, and they never failed!”

J.P.S.

Article series: You are not alone