The Advantage — Answering The Call - A Redeeming The Time Blog

The Advantage

By Grant Gaines

I want to ask you a question and I need you to be completely honest with yourself. What would your workplace, school, home, marriage, and church look like if Jesus Christ was there in the flesh? Take a moment to grab a piece of paper and write out five ways your world would look different with Jesus physically present.

If you’re anything like me, the entire atmosphere of my world would be radically transformed. People would be less stressed and more joyful. People would use less gossip and more encouraging words. People would care less for their needs and more for the needs of others. Indeed, if Jesus were standing right next to me everywhere I went today, my world would be a lot better place!

But that’s not the way God intended it to be.

I can see you reading this blog with a very confused look on your face right now as you attempt to process what I just said-“The world would be a better place without Jesus physically in our midst.” I know, I know, sounds like the craziest thing I’ve ever said, right? But if you hang in there with me for just a moment, we’ll discover that that’s actually the exact thing that Jesus hinted at in John 16.

At this juncture of the Gospel of John, Jesus was already walking away from the upper room where He and His disciples just shared the Last Supper and was headed towards the Garden of Gethsemane where He would soon be betrayed by Judas. Christ had already told His disciples of His murderous fate and that after rising from the dead He would ascend to heaven.

For us as we read that Christ would die, be raised to life, and ascend to heaven we rejoice in the truth of the Gospel. But for the disciples who followed Jesus for three years as a Teacher, Shepherd, and Friend, the news that Christ would no longer be with them caused their hearts to sink.

It’s in this moment that Jesus turned to His downcast disciples and told them, “…I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away…” (John 16:7, ESV).

“It’s to your advantage” as the ESV says it. “It’s for your good” as the NIV translates it, that Jesus would not physically be with His disciples any longer nor with His followers right now. Isn’t that about the most crazy thing you have ever heard? Could you imagine willfully choosing not to have Jesus stand right next to you when it was an option?

And yet, as ridiculous as that sounds that it would be to our advantage not to have Jesus here with us right now, that’s exactly what Jesus said. He wanted His disciples who were with Him on that Thursday night 2,000+ years ago to know the same thing He desires us to know-we are better off right now without Jesus physically walking with us through our day.

How on earth is that possible? Because, as Jesus continued, “…for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7, NIV).

If Jesus was standing right next to me right now, I would be having a phenomenal day. But what about you, how would you be doing if Jesus was next to me instead of you? What about the believers over in Europe, South America, and Africa, how would they be doing if Jesus was next to me instead of them?

What Jesus is getting at in John 16:7 is that if Jesus was physically present here on earth, He could only be in one place at one time because He took on the limitations of humanity when He walked our earth for 33 years. However, now that He has ascended to heaven, He has sent us the “Advocate,” the “Counselor,” the “Helper,” the Holy Spirit who is the exact same Spirit who enabled Jesus to do His work (Matthew 4:16) to dwell within every single one of His children regardless of where they are.

Just as a child can more freely maneuver throughout the neighborhood without training wheels on his bike through the training wheels offer a sense of comfort and ease, so we as God’s children can now take the Spirit of Christ with us wherever we go. And because God’s Spirit is alive within us, we have the authority and ability to be Jesus to everyone we come in contact with today.

Just as Jesus healed the cripple, we have the power through the Spirit to speak a single word of encouragement into someone’s life that will heal their souls. Just as Jesus miraculously fed the 5,000, we have the ability to give people bread that will not spoil (Isaiah 55:1-2) and water that will truly satisfy (John 4:13-14). And just as Jesus raised the dead to life, we have the power through the hope of the Gospel to raise those who are spiritually dead into an eternal life.

Through the presence of the Holy Spirit in every believer’s life, we can now all have Jesus with us everywhere we go. There are no limitations as to where Jesus can or can’t be because He is inside every one of us. There are no restrictions to where His light can or can’t shine because He has made us the light of the world (Matthew 5:16) so that we can shine His love and truth at all times.

So let me ask you again, what would your workplace, school, home, marriage, and church look like if Jesus Christ was there in the flesh? If we’re living the way Jesus intended us to live, these places should really look no different than they do right now because we are letting Christ shine through us. So if there is a contradiction between what your world should look like with Jesus physically present and what it actually looks like, guess what? You get to be that difference. You get to shine that light. You get to be the Jesus that your world so desperately needs to see!

How can you be Jesus to the world today?