Fearless...

“The Lord challenges us to suffer persecutions and to confess him.  He wants those who belong to him to be brave and fearless.  He himself shows how weakness of the flesh is overcome by courage of the Spirit.  This is the testimony of the apostles and in particular of the representative, administrating Spirit.  A Christian is fearless.”  Tertullian

I really like this quote.  It’s a very hard pill to swallow sometimes, but it’s SHOULD be true.  Since I’ve been in Ghana I’ve gotten a lot more into the Word and I’ve started to understand some things that I never even realized I didn’t understand.  Why are all those  stories in the Bible in the first place?  There are so many different occasions in the Bible where people displayed extraordinary courage or bravery in the face of certain death and doom.  When I was younger I just enjoyed the stories like most children do.  What child wouldn’t enjoy hearing such fantastical stories like Jonah, David and Goliath, Daniel and the Lions’ Den and so on?  But as a child they felt like “stories” to me...like fairy tails.  I know that I was aware that these stories were supposed to be different than other stories like Snow White or Aladdin, but I didn’t really understand until I got older.  The stories in the Bible are not fairy tales or myths.  They are historical documentation of the most amazing events to ever happen on this earth.  David, Goliath, Noah, Joshua, Jonah, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego.....they’re all REAL people.  Just like you and I, they were once alive on this earth.  They had real families, real jobs, real problems just like we have now.  So what made them so extraordinary in the stories that have made them so well known?  It was their faith!  They were courageous because they really believed that the Bible (at least what they had of it then) was true.  They really believed that the Creator of the universe was involved in their lives.  

Now think about this.....they didn’t even have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit like Christians today do!  We have the potential to have SO much courage.  We don’t just have the occasional help of the Holy Spirit in extreme situations...He lives inside of us all the time.  The same Sprit that enabled Daniel and his friends to excel  in their training, and to withstand being burnt alive in a furnace LIVES inside of me.  The same Spirit that enabled Noah to be righteous when literally the whole earth was unrighteous and to build a boat for a flood even though he’d never seen rain, lives inside of me.  The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead....THAT Spirit LIVES INSIDE of my body!

Now, I don’t know about you, but to me, that thought is very complex.  It’s comforting to know that I have this tremendous source of power.  It’s also a little frightening.  Why?  Because, God knows my true potential.  So He knows if I’m living up to my potential....It’s also a little frightening because it’s just SO much power. Sometimes it freaks me out to think about what God could use me for if I just totally let go of myself and submitted to HIM in every aspect of my life.   Look at Paul, God used him to do amazing things....God also allowed him to suffer extensively.  Could I withstand suffering like that?  Could I do amazing things like Paul did?  I have to believe that I could if I really lived by faith and by the direction of the Holy Spirit.  Power can be a scary thing.  But the amazing thing is that the power of the Holy Spirit doesn’t have to be scary to us.  In fact there should be no fear at all of this power.  God loves us and there is no fear in love.  The power of the Holy Spirit is to enable us to serve God fully.  He gives us the power to do extraordinary things and to have extraordinary faith!  What an amazing gift that is!  

Nyame Adom (by God's Grace)

BethAnn