THE SPIRIT OF BOLDNESS
So today, I want you to know that the Spirit of love, of power, and of soundness of mind is available for you when you feel afraid. So let’s practice.
A PRAYER FOR BOLDNESS
Could it be that there are situations where I need more courage and not more vengeance? Have I wrongfully prayed for death on people that needed light and by so doing refused the opportunity to grow in faith and courage? Have I been so focused on my comfort and my desire for retribution that I missed an opportunity to walk in love and grow in faith? Was Stephen right to have accepted being stoned to death instead of calling blindness on his stoners?
YOU NEED COMPANY
You cannot do faith without company or community. I know that virtual reality, quarantine, and social distancing have us thinking that we can live on our own and do life alone, but let me burst that bubble real quick, they lied to you. Faith thrives in community. If this were not true, God will not instruct us not to forsake our gathering together to fellowship as brethren. However, I have come to notice that the issue with the majority of people I know is not that they would prefer to be alone, they just don’t want to put themselves out there and get rejected or be betrayed because they trusted the wrong people. And that’s fear.
HERE COME THREATS
But so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them, that from now on they speak to no man in this name.” So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way of punishing them, because of the people, since they all glorified God for what…
GOD HEARS YOU
And God heard the voice of the lad. Then the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said to her, “What ails you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad and hold him with your hand, for I will…
AN INVITATION TO PARTNERSHIP
Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers—they held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing—and they cried, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!” JUDGES 7:20 There are four major things that are evident in any partnership. The first is that it…
THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT YOU
It happened on the same night that the Lord said to him, “Arise, go down against the camp, for I have delivered it into your hand. But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant, and you shall hear what they say; and afterward your hands shall…
FEAR CAN’T GO WITH YOU
Now therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead.’ ” And twenty-two thousand of the people returned, and ten thousand remained. Judges 7:3 Have you noticed that one of the first things God says after He gives us an…
YOU DON’T NEED A CROWD
And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’ JUDGES 7:2 Now I know we talked about getting a “geng” and cultivating a community that…
DO IT ANYWAY
Now it came to pass the same night that the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is beside it; and build an altar to the Lord your…