In this world you will have trouble. But, take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33
I love that verse – probably because it is so seeped in truth. These are words in red letters – spoken by Yeshua (Jesus) just hours before his arrest.
In this world you will have trouble. But, take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33
I love that verse – probably because it is so seeped in truth. These are words in red letters – spoken by Yeshua (Jesus) just hours before his arrest.
Don’t let the world take from you what God has given you! When we devalue our time or our work – or even ourselves – in the name of humbleness or modesty or some misplaced fear of pretentiousness, then we’re basically squandering our gifts.
I was alone in the dining room. This is a long room – the length of the church building – and I was at the end, near the kitchen, well away from the only entrance to the room. As I was sorting bread, I turned around and a man was standing right next to me, his arms outstretched as if he was coming in for a hug. He was tall, unkempt, unshaven, sweaty, filthy, and he smelled really bad. I’d never seen him before. But I hugged him anyway. It felt wrong not to. He slapped me on the back and said, “I’ve just been telling people about Jesus!”
I suffer from this on an extreme. It just is how my brain works. I’m not sure what triggers it — maybe it’s a subconscious reminder of a series of bad decisions through my teen and young adult years or maybe it’s just how I’m wired — but the entire time I’m writing, teaching, speaking, or just interacting with people in my day-to-day life, in the back of my mind I’m waiting for someone to expose me as a fraud. To claim and make sure everyone knows and understands that I don’t have the right to my authority, to my words, to my talents.
Even though I’ve done so much study for years and years, but I had a new revelation last week.
Don’t you just love it when God does that?