Never Will I Leave You, Never Will I Forsake You

Never Will I Leave You, Never Will I Forsake You

There are many scriptures and phrases that our Abba Father has spoken to me that are precious to me and have sustained me through many trials of life. One of those is “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” These words appear in both the Old Testament and the New Testament and always in the context of not being afraid of whatever is before us that might make us believe that God is not with us in whatever we are facing. Those scriptures are:

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Deu 31:6)

The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (Deu 31:8)

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Heb 13:5)

As I was pondering these scriptures one day the thought came to me that it seems redundant to say “never will I leave you” and to say “never will I forsake you”. This led me to looking into the meaning of the words and I was significantly surprised at what I found. The word forsake is not a synonym for leave. Forsake is a compound word composed of “for” which is a negative modifier and “sake” which means seek. Therefore, forsake means to not seek out. Therefore, what God our Father has promised is that never will he leave us and never will he not seek us out! This is the great story of the gospel! You can see it in Genesis 3 when God comes looking for Adam and Eve in the garden where they are hiding after they believed the lie of Satan. He called to them in the middle of their deception of believing that they needed to hide from the one who is Love and who created them to be in fellowship with him. Even when they sinned by believing the lie, he did not abandon them to the consequences of the lie. You also see this in the parables that Jesus spoke in Luke 15 about the lost coin, the lost sheep and the lost son who demanded that his father give him his inheritance. Jesus told these parables to displace the lie of Satan that God cannot be near us when we sin by believing the lies of Satan. Not only can he be near us but he will come to where we are and enter into our darkness and brokenness to show us who he is! He is good and his love endures forever!

Today is what is called Good Friday in remembrance of when Jesus was crucified. It is commonly taught that God our Father poured out wrath upon Jesus and turned his back on or abandoned Jesus as he was dying on the cross. The teaching further indicates that the reason that this happened was that all of the sin of mankind was heaped upon Jesus and therefore, God who is holy, could not look upon him. (See my previous post titled “When Did God Become Holy and Are You Holy” about how we have misunderstood what it means that God is holy.) The Father, Son and Holy Spirit live in fellowship with each other and that did not cease when Jesus became a man. He came to look for us in our darkness just as he did with Adam and Eve except that he came as a man who could experience our world and the effects of sin in our world. He literally met us in our brokenness to show us who Abba Father really is and what he is really like.

But that was not enough, he also took all of our brokenness and sin unto himself and took it to death on the cross! But he did not do it alone! Jesus repeatedly said that he only did and said what he saw his Abba Father doing. John 16:32 make this even clearer when Jesus speaks to his disciples of his soon to come death, “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.” However, this seems to be in conflict with Matthew 27:46 when Jesus cried out about three in the afternoon in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”) Jesus was quoting a very short portion of Psalm 22 which is a very accurate prophecy about Jesus being crucified. Jesus, who is the Word who became flesh, knew this Psalm very well in its entirety. This includes verse 24 which states, “For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.” As a man, he felt forsaken, because he took and entered into all the brokenness and darkness of all mankind. But he knew is his spirit the truth that Abba Father would not abandon him. 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 makes this even clearer, “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit have been in fellowship with one another since before the foundation of the world and this entire creation was spoken into being out of that fellowship. It is their desire for us to share in that fellowship. Therefore, we were created to enter into their fellowship and nothing, not even our rebellion, will change that desire. When Jesus cried out just before his death, “It is finished” it meant that the work of God our Father reconciling us to himself was done. He is not counting our sins against us! Therefore, the only thing hindering us from entering into the eternal fellowship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is our unbelief that he is really that good!

During this season of remembering and celebrating the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus please read and ponder Psalm 22 and rejoice that we have been reconciled unto God and that nothing shall ever separate from his love in Christ Jesus.

Blessings,
Kevin