“But Lord,’ Gideon asked, ‘How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least in my family.’ The Lord answered, ‘I will be with you …’” Judges 6:15
How often do I look within or to another before I look up? Gideon looked at where he came from. He looked at his own accomplishments and his personal sense of identity, trying to establish whether he was equipped for the task, but God had a different answer: “I will be with you,” God told Gideon.
Sometimes, living in our fearlessly independent society, we forget that we don’t have to rely on self. We don’t need the perfect credentials to walk in the call God has for us.
Instead, we are partnered with the God of the Universe who promises: “I will be with you.” It’s the promise of Emmanuel—God with us. We don’t have to do it alone. We can look up and fix our eyes on this God who can do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us
Romans 5:5
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Hope has become such a "wimpy" term in modern vocabulary. It hardly qualifies as an adequate translation of the meaning in most New Testament passages. Hope is the assurance that what we believe will happen. We could call it spiritual confidence. We have that spiritual confidence because more than just a wish, more than just an emotion, more than just a belief rests in our heart; God himself lives in us through his Holy Spirit.
When we become Christians, Jesus pours out the Spirit upon us (Titus 3:3-7) as God's gift to us (Acts 2:38; Acts 5:32) to cleanse us (1 Corinthians 6:11), make us part of the same! Body (1 Corinthians 12:12-13), and live inside us (1 Cor. 6:19-20). Paul adds one more thing to that list of blessings from God's presence within us — God's love. We don't just have it; God keeps refreshing it through the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus had promised (John 7:37-39).
How often do I look within or to another before I look up? Gideon looked at where he came from. He looked at his own accomplishments and his personal sense of identity, trying to establish whether he was equipped for the task, but God had a different answer: “I will be with you,” God told Gideon.
Sometimes, living in our fearlessly independent society, we forget that we don’t have to rely on self. We don’t need the perfect credentials to walk in the call God has for us.
Instead, we are partnered with the God of the Universe who promises: “I will be with you.” It’s the promise of Emmanuel—God with us. We don’t have to do it alone. We can look up and fix our eyes on this God who can do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us
Romans 5:5
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Hope has become such a "wimpy" term in modern vocabulary. It hardly qualifies as an adequate translation of the meaning in most New Testament passages. Hope is the assurance that what we believe will happen. We could call it spiritual confidence. We have that spiritual confidence because more than just a wish, more than just an emotion, more than just a belief rests in our heart; God himself lives in us through his Holy Spirit.
When we become Christians, Jesus pours out the Spirit upon us (Titus 3:3-7) as God's gift to us (Acts 2:38; Acts 5:32) to cleanse us (1 Corinthians 6:11), make us part of the same! Body (1 Corinthians 12:12-13), and live inside us (1 Cor. 6:19-20). Paul adds one more thing to that list of blessings from God's presence within us — God's love. We don't just have it; God keeps refreshing it through the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus had promised (John 7:37-39).
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