Blessed be the name of our Savior JESUS! Welcome as we study the Word of God together. It is very important for us to press on until we reach the place where God becomes everything to us. This means that even if all people abandon you, forsake you, or forget you, still GOD is more than enough comfort for you—greater than thousands of friends or relatives. When we come to this place, we will be people of unshakable joy, living without depending on the encouragement of others or the pleasures of this world. If we can reach the level where human applause is no longer the main source of our motivation, then we will stand as great men and women before God. In the same way, when we reach the point where insults, mockery, or rejection from people do not cause us to be discouraged or broken, we will become strong before both God and man. Many Christians are easily stirred when people encourage them, and they are quickly discouraged when people fail them. But this was not the case with our Lord JESUS CHRIST. His comfort and His sorrow were found in the Father alone. So much so, that even if thousands of people praised Him, if such praise was not from His Father, it could not motivate Him. Likewise, if all people turned against Him and left Him alone, as long as the Father was with Him, He was not discouraged. As the Scriptures testify: John 16:32“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.” Here Jesus foresaw the hour when His disciples would flee and leave Him alone. And indeed, this was fulfilled when the soldiers came to arrest Him in the Garden of Gethsemane—Scripture records that everyone fled, and one young man even fled naked (Mark 14:51–52). Yet, we never see Jesus discouraged by this. Why? Because He knew and was certain that His Father was with Him. He understood that even if people abandoned Him, it did not mean that His Father had abandoned Him. But when the moment came for the Father to forsake Him for a brief time, because of the sins of the world placed upon Him, then we hear His cry of anguish: Matthew 27:46“About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ (which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’).” This shows us that the presence of the Father was everything to Jesus. And so it must be with us. We must come to the place where our God and Father remains our ultimate comfort—so that even if the whole world turns its back on us, the Father remains our strength, our peace, our joy, our beginning and our end. Even if the whole world praises us and gives us encouragement, it is only the Father’s approval that will complete our joy. As the Psalmist declares: Psalm 9:10“Those who know your name trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.” May the Lord Jesus help us to depend wholly on the Father.