These words were spoken by the Lord Jesus just prior to Him going to the cross to die for sinners like you and me.  He is alone with His disciples and preparing them for the time when He would no longer be with them physically upon the earth.  Although He would no longer be with them physically, He promises His presence with them spiritually.  Let’s read the words of the Lord Jesus in  John 14:18-20, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”  What a blessed truth…Christ is in the Father, we (believers) are in Christ, and Christ is in us.” 

We see the fulfillments of these promises brought out to us in Ephesians 2:13, “But now IN CHRIST JESUS ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” And in Colossians 1:27, “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is CHRIST IN YOU, the hope of glory.”  As believers on the Lord Jesus Christ, we are in Him and He is in us. 

The Lord promised not to leave us “comfortless.”  John 14:18 in the NASB reads, “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you.”  The word ‘orphans’ is an appropriate translation from the Greek word ‘orphanós’.  The Lord promised that we would not be left alone as one without a parent.  He had previously said in John 14:16-17, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you ANOTHER COMFORTER, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”  This shows that Christ was their comforter and in His physical absence, He would send them ANOTHER comforter…the Holy Spirit who would dwell with them and in them.  It was on the day of Pentecost that this promise was fulfilled.  We read in Acts 2:1-4, “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”  In our present Church Age, the Holy Spirit indwells every believer in Christ. (Romans 8:9, Ephesians 1:13).

So, my dear fellow believer, we have the abiding presence of the Lord with us and in us.  We also have His special promise to be among us when He gathers us together, as we read in Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”  We have the promise of His abiding presence in Hebrews 13:5, “…I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”  We have the promise of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 4:30, “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”  Indeed, the Lord has not left us comfortless.  (CC)  (688.6)