“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (14:27). In the face of so many problems around the world and in our personal lives, who doesn’t need some peace today? But Jesus doesn’t just promise to make us feel better in the midst of our confusion. No, He also promises to give us a Helper, the One He calls the “Spirit of truth” (14:16). So, the Holy Spirit will help us cut through all the lies, all the spin, and all the conflicting opinions that surround us, teaching us what we need to know and helping us remember Christ’s teachings even in the most perplexing situations (14:26).

But we have an even greater reason for peace. For Jesus doesn’t just promise to explain all our problems to us. No, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, He says that He and the Father will come to us and make their home with us (14:23). So, no matter how many trials may face us today, we can be sure that we won’t face them alone.

So, if Christ Himself is within us, revealing Himself and His love to us (14:21), surely we should respond by loving Him in return. And the best way to do that is simply to trust what He says and to do our best to live it out in our lives, loving and serving one another (13:34). For if we have access to both the truth and the power of God, what excuse do we have if we fail to obey Him? Surely, failing to keep His Word would mean we just don’t love Him, right (14:42)?

So, let’s not allow our hearts to be troubled today (14:27). Instead let’s live in the truth, the presence and the love of Christ, no matter what may come our way.

John 14:15-31 (ESV)

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.
20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?”
23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.
25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you.
26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
28 You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.
29 And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe.
30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me,
31 but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.