Emmanuel
is God with us. Jesus became a man and laid down His life for the whole world (John 15:13). Now, He lives within us by His
Spirit. He works out everything in our life according to His will as we walk in
the Spirit and not after the things of this world (Galatians 5:16). He even turns around the negative
circumstances in our life for our good (Romans
8:28).
When we are in God’s Army, we are under His protection and provision and no one
can come against us (Romans
8:31).
Nothing
can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Not
even death, or
life, or angels, or principalities, or powers, or things present or things to
come, or height or depth or any other created thing (Romans
8:38-39). We rise
above circumstances and we have supernatural strength, which prevents us from
getting weary and giving up. We soar above the stress of the world like Eagles
on wings lifted by His Spirit (Isaiah
40:31).
The Lord is good, and those who trust in Him are blessed (Psalm 34:8).
God
desires peace for us, not evil. He wants to give us a future full of hope (Jeremiah 29:11). Everything we accomplish in our
own efforts matters little in the Kingdom
of God
We have no need to lose heart, even if life around us is falling apart. God
uses affliction in our life to create His character and moral integrity in our
soul. God renews our inner spirit every day as we read His Word, worship Him
for who He is and fellowship with other Believers. We do not always understand
why we end up in certain situations in life, because we are looking into a hazy
mirror. We only have limited understanding and knowledge. But God promises that
in eternity we will understand all things. We will know everyone and everyone
will know who we are (1
Corinthians 13:12).
The
key is to keep our focus on what is eternal, and not on the natural, temporary
aspects of life (2 Corinthians
4:16-18). Abundance
in this world does not even compare to the excellence of knowing Christ as our
Savior and Lord. Through our faith in God, He gives us the righteousness of
Christ in exchange for our futile efforts (Philippians
3:7-9).
Jesus is our
High Priest and we can come to Him any time in any place with a true heart that
is full of the assurance of faith in Him.
Once
Christ dwells in our hearts, we are rooted and grounded in love and we can
begin to understand the width, length, depth and height of God’s love for us. He
fills us with all the fullness of God according to His power that works in us.
He enables us to accomplish through His Spirit exceedingly abundantly above
anything we could ever ask or conceive (Ephesians 3:17-21).
Therefore,
we can walk in boldness by the blood of Jesus in a new and holy way of living.
He sprinkled our hearts with His blood, cleansed our evil conscience and made
us a new creation in Him. We can grasp firmly to the confession of our hope in
Him without any fear or doubt, because He whom we trust is faithful to keep all
of His promises (Hebrews 10:19-23; Deuteronomy 31:6).
Prayer:
Lord
Jesus, we find joy in You, even through our tribulation and the testing of our
faith. These trials produce patience in us, and then patience does a perfect
work in us, making us complete and lacking in nothing we need to carry out Your
plan for our life (James 1:2-4). You reveal Your righteousness in us as we live by faith in
Your finished work on
Thought
for the Day:
Watch,
stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. - 1 Corinthians 16:13 