The last words that Jesus shared with his disciples before he ascended into heaven are recorded in Matthew 28:20, And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.
In Hebrews 13:5, God promises "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you!" Other translations say, I will never leave you; I will never forsake you.
I want to break this verse apart for you and look at three main words in this verse from the original Greek.
1) First, what does God mean when he says Never?
He means forever never.
In the original language "never" is really a compounding of five negatives. Five negatives. In the Greek, each negative is multiplied by the other negatives. In other words, the original Greek reads like this - "I will never, no, not ever, no never leave you or forsake you!"
It's a forever never which has no exceptions! "I will never, no, not ever, no never leave you or forsake you!" Wow! What a promise!!!
But that's just part of this verse...
2) The second major word is leave.
What does the word leave mean? In the original Greek, it means "to leave behind, to abandon, to give up on, to send back." So then, so far our verse reads like this: "I will never, no not ever, no never leave you behind, abandon you, give up on you, or send you back!"
3) The third major word is the word, Forsake
What does forsake mean? It means, "to leave one in a helpless state, to disregard ." It also means "not relaxing my watchfulness over you."
So, to fully understand this verse and the three major words in this verse, here is the way it would read when fully expanded from the original Greek..
"I will never, no not ever, no never give up on you, abandon you, leave you behind, leave you helpless, nor will I ever relax in my faithfulness in keeping watch over you!
What a verse. What a promise. What a powerful reminder of Gods promise to us.
Bob Benson once wrote:
When life caves in, you don't need reasons - you need comfort. You don't need some answers - you need someone. And Jesus does not come to us with an explanation - He comes to us with His presence.
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