Tomorrow march down against them. They will be climbing up by the Pass of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the gorge in the Desert of Jeruel. You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you.’ “ Early in the morning they left for the Desert of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Listen to me, Judah and people of Jerusalem! Have faith in the Lord your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful. ”After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: “Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.” As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.”

During the reign of Jehoshaphat, a vast army came up from Edom against Israel. They were clearly greater in numbers and power than the forces of Israel, so Jehoshaphat cried out to God, saying, “For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you” (2 Chr. 20:12).

There are times in our lives that we simply don’t know how to respond to the event or the dilemma before us. There are truly things against which we have no power and no answers. Jehoshaphat recognized his dilemma when three kings combined their armies against Israel. He showed wisdom in two things: (1) He acknowledged his own limitations, and (2) he acknowledged that God has no limitations. He then simply declared, “Our eyes are upon you.” There are times we must choose to trust God and see what God will do on our behalf. Our faith falls on the nature of God and who he is for us – his chosen people. Every crisis, every dilemma offers the opportunity to discover more of who the Father is for us. We look to see what will he do out of his nature and his love for us.

Sometimes, we are taken by surprise. Jehoshaphat was stunned that God had even allowed these armies to form and conspire against Israel, but they were, in fact, marching briskly toward Jerusalem. The text says that all the men of Judah, with their wives and children, stood before the Lord and waited for a response. In that moment, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel, the priest, who declared to the king and the assembly, “This is what the Lord says to you, “Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours but God’s…take up your positions, stand firm, and see the deliverance the Lord will give you” (2 Chr.20:15-17).

We need to understand that Old Testament battles are our blueprints for spiritual warfare. In the face of overwhelming news, the Lord reminded his people that they did not fight out of their own strength but out of his. They were to take up their positions, but primarily to witness what God would do for them. Their part was to show up for the battle but then to begin to praise and worship the Lord. As they began to turn their hearts toward Jehovah and lift up praise, he began to set ambushes. The three armies that had combined their forces against Israel were suddenly afraid, confused, and turning on one another. They slaughtered one another without Israel wielding one weapon in the natural realm. All that was left was to pick up the plunder left behind by these defeated armies.

Satan loves to intimidate and send forth a spirit of fear when he moves against God’s people. Sometimes we can overcome the enemy with the divine weapons and strategies God has already given us. At other times, what he has shown us in the past seems inadequate for the present. In those moments he is preparing to show us something new. Our part is to trust him to be who he is for us. God is unchanging. Every example of battle in the Old Testament records victory for God’s people when their hearts were turned toward him. God, by his very nature, is victorious. He cannot be anything else and he always wants to be that for his people.

Secondly, we must take up our positions and stand as children of the King, soldiers of Christ, and the faithful who have not been given a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind – a mind in harmony with the mind of Christ. We are to take up our positions with our eyes on God, waiting to see the victory and the good that God will bring out of inexplicable tragedies. It is the nature of God to create good – to create victory out of the very things Satan means for harm.

When there seems to be no adequate response to the enemy then, the most powerful weapon we can roll out is the weapon of praise and worship with our eyes fixed on the Father, the Son and the Spirit. When we worship we defy the enemy who has tried to intimidate us and take away our hearts. When we worship we remind ourselves of who God is and who he is for us. When we worship, we increase the presence of God against whom the enemy cannot stand. When we worship in the face of overwhelming odds or tragedy we can be sure that God is setting ambushes in the spiritual realm, confusing the enemy, and turning demons against one another. We then will claim the victory that Satan had once claimed. A cross and three spikes is the ultimate example of God drawing incredible good out of what seemed to be inexplicable tragedy and loss.

When we feel overwhelmed and are left with no discernable response to something that has happened, then we are to set our eyes on the Father, take up our positions in anticipation of seeing who the Father will be for us, and then worship. God will take care of the rest.

There is nothing like a championship game, won in the final seconds when your team was down and victory seemed impossible. Suddenly, the opposing team, who seemed to dominate the entire game, begins to falter. Your team begins to surge and in the last moment the unbelievable pass to the end zone or the three point shot from the edge steals the victory when all seemed lost. God specializes in those wins. It seems to take the heart out of the enemy even more than if we always dominated. It also allows us to cheer louder for our Great King who always comes through because that is who he is. Wait, praise, and see what God does. You will be amazed.

Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:6-9)

[We buried two amazing Christian friends this past weekend who died tragically.  I believe God pointed me to this verse for my heart and, perhaps, for the hearts of others who are wounded by this loss.]

There are times when we have to choose to be strong and courageous. We have to choose it because the enemy has just knocked us down. The book of Joshua opens with the death of Moses. Think about the loss of that lone figure who faced down Pharaoh, led the nation of Israel through the Red Sea, stood on the mountain with God, pleaded for rebellious Israel when God would destroy them and start over, led them through the wilderness for forty years, brought water from the rock, and spoke face-to-face with God every day. For those who had been children when they left Egypt, he was the only leader they had ever known. He was such a figure and so esteemed by God that they must have felt that he was eternal, that he would never die. In fact, we are told that at the age of 120, “his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone” (Dt.34:7). And yet, he did die. The Israelites grieved for thirty days and then God told Joshua to get ready to take the land he had promised to them.

We often think of these great men and women of the Bible as superheroes, full of resolve and never doubting, but they were flesh and blood just like us. They had their weaknesses, their doubts, their moments of failure, and fear just like we do. Suddenly, Joshua must have felt the weight of leadership like never before. Up to that moment, he simply carried out orders that came from the lips of Moses. It was Moses who had to hear from God. Now he had to hear correctly. Would the people accept him as their leader? Now he had to lead, knowing that not everyone would cast their vote for him if it were decided by election. There had always been  opponents of Moses, how much more might they oppose him? And then there was the enemy across the river. They still had to face warring people with fortified cities. The Nephilim were still in the land. Israel was still no nation of military might and strategy. They were mostly nomads who had wandered the wilderness for forty years until they buried their parents. Very few had any experience in warfare.

Three times, in these three verses, God tells Joshua to be strong and courageous. The reason was simple – God would be with him and God was determined that his people would inherit the land God had promised to Abraham and to them. Joshua had many reasons to doubt his calling, to doubt his leadership, and, perhaps, to doubt that he was even hearing from God. I know there must have been moments when he had to engage his will to believe, to be strong and courageous, and to take the land God had promised. Undoubtedly, Satan was not absent from those moments. He had been in the camp since Israel left Egypt sowing fear and discord, golden calves, and rebellion. Surely he was there when Joshua was given his commission planting doubt and accusation in his mind.

There are always two trees in our garden. One is the Tree of Life, which we access by faith; the other is the tree of death that bears the fruit of Satan’s lies. We have to choose which tree we will tend and from which tree we will eat. God called Joshua to feed on his word and his commandments for life flows from those. God called Joshua to meditate on his promises and on the purposes that God had established for his people. He called on Joshua to meditate on the very nature of God and who God had been for his people for forty years.

From that focus comes strength and courage. If you think about it, the odds of success were the same for Israel crossing the Jordan this time, as they were when Israel balked at crossing the river forty years earlier. Reason would say they were still out-manned and out-gunned. Faith said that the same God, who broke the back of Pharaoh, would do the same with the enemies of Israel that occupied their land.

God always defies human reason. Faith grabs hold of that and even when the enemy gets a punch in, the strong and courageous get back on their feet with an assurance that one punch does not settle the fight. They get back on their feet with a determination to finish the task that God has given them because he had promised to never leave them or forsake them and to give them victory in the end.

God’s call on our lives seems light and bright when everything is going our way, meeting our expectations, and making sense to us. But there will be times when the enemy gets in a punch and, perhaps, even knocks us to the canvas gasping for air.   If we are shaken by the experience of that blow getting by our defenses, believe that God has forsaken us, or that the enemy is too strong, we will certainly loose. If we rise up, however, more determined than ever to believe God for the victory he has promised and to hit back even harder, then we will lead our people to inherit the land God has promised them. We will fulfill our commission.

Some days, in the face of disappointment, loss, tragedy, weariness, and uncertainty there is a part of us that feels defeated and, perhaps, even wants to give up. We, like Elijah, just want to run and hide. That is when we must hear God’s whisper, “Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous… Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” So, whatever you are facing or feeling today, decide to be strong and courageous for he is surely with us. Catch your breath, feed on the Tree of Life, soak in the Word, bathe your heart in praise, and rise up more determined that ever to push ahead. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Sometimes you have books on your shelves because they are great reads and you plan to read them from cover to cover again some day. At other times, you have books that you read once and now they function as reference books. Those books have sections you refer to for reminders or for re-sharpening your thoughts in certain areas of life or faith. One of those books for me is Deliverance from Evil Spirits by Francis MacNutt. He takes a little more academic approach to the subject than most books on deliverance but it is worth the read theologically and practically. He is a former Catholic priest so his perspectives are interesting in that regard but he teaches and ministers healing and deliverance to churches around the world and across the board.

I like what he has to say about evangelism. “The Gospel is not meant merely to teach doctrine, but necessarily includes the power to free, save and to heal. After preaching in thirty countries, I believe that peoples of every culture are willing to hear the message of Christ’s salvation. Whenever we preach that God, in love, sent his son, Jesus Christ, to free the human race from sin and evil, people will respond eagerly. In the days when I taught homiletics in seminary, I thought the preacher’s problem was to figure out how to make the Gospel relevant to the needs of contemporary people. Now, I realize the Gospel is in itself relevant, that it does appeal. But I was not preaching the Gospel fully because I did not fully understand the need for power to heal and free people from evil spirits…Only when we are able to free the oppressed and heal those suffering from the curse of sickness can we really preach Christ’s basic message: The Kingdom of God is at hand and the kingdom of Satan is being destroyed” (p. 66).

I myself have come to believe that a partial gospel is no gospel at all. Biblically, salvation is not just the forgiveness of sin but is closer to the idea of Shalom or peace in the Hebrew language. Shalom includes everything needed for a blessed life: absence of conflict, flourishing relationships, health, prosperity, protection, a sound mind…and more. Jesus promised his followers an “abundant life.” That carries the flavor of Shalom and abundance is more that just the forgiveness of sins. If my sins are forgiven but I am still oppressed and tormented by demons or suffering at the hands of some debilitating disease then the abundant life seems fairly impoverished.

Often we point to the glory of someone enduring sickness or disability while still maintaining their love for God and still praising Him as a purifying and sanctifying grace from heaven. I agree that their ability to endure and praise is a grace from God but we need to be careful not to declare that the sickness or disability itself is a grace or a gift from God.

Illness, pain, tragedy, birth defects, and demons are not from God. They are a result of sin, which has never been God’s will. They are a result of a distorted universe that was also twisted by Adam’s sin. Adam’s sin and the resulting curse was the work of Satan. John tell us that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil and so we see Jesus break the power of sin, restore our relationship with the Father, heal the sick, remedy disabilities, raise the dead and drive away demons.

Jesus and his followers always preached the kingdom and then demonstrated it or they demonstrated the kingdom and then preached it. They always did both. Power without forgiveness will simply send a healthy man to hell while forgiveness without power leaves a saved man tormented. Paul tried only persuasive words (making the Gospel relevant) when he preached on Mars Hill in Athens. If you check Acts 17, the results were very disappointing. Then he moved on to Corinth where he later confessed, “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (I Cor. 2:1-5).

After Mars Hill, Paul reconsidered his strategy and determined that the simple message of grace and forgiveness coupled with a demonstration of God’s grace through power was the way to go. After all, that had been the strategy of Jesus in his own ministry as well as the one he commanded when he sent out the twelve and the seventy-two to preach, heal, and cast out demons. We would do well to follow that pattern whether we are preaching to thousands or to one. Even Paul had to be reminded.

I need reminders to keep it simple and stay on point. I need reminders to pray for boldness to share the gospel but also for an anointing to demonstrate power not just for me but for my church and the church universal. You really can’t improve on Jesus. That’s why I like to look back at books I have often looked at before because the yellow highlighted sections call me back to things I need to be reminded of. I encourage you to go back and look at the yellow highlights and notes scribbled in the margins as well. Blessings today in all you do.

When his disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, he began with a relatively revolutionary idea – Our Father in heaven. For the most part, Jewish theological thought viewed God as the one whose name should not be spoken and whose presence in the Holy of Holies was as dangerous as it was glorious. He was seen as the Holy Judge of all the earth and the destroyer of the enemies of Israel. He was the thunder and flame on Sinai and the earthquake swallowing up the sons of Korah.

But Jesus spoke to the Father in familiar and intimate terms and encouraged every believer to do the same. That must have been a difficult paradigm shift for many. It still is. One of the great hindrances to receiving the promises and the power of the Holy Spirit is our view of God. When we ask God for healing, deliverance, favor, provision, and protection we often ask with a minimal expectation – more of a hope than a confident request. That presents a real dilemma when we know that whatever we ask for, believing that we have received it, will be ours (see Mark 11:24).  We hope he will answer our petitions, but we are not always confident that he will and that is a formula for few answered prayers.

Many of us have a difficult time believing that our Heavenly Father is willing, able, and eager to bless us, heal us, and deliver us from the power of the enemy. We still view him as a God who keeps careful records and who weighs our good moments against our bad to see if we have earned enough points to merit an answered prayer. We see him as a Father whose love is conditional, who is beyond understanding, and who may well visit pain and suffering on us to “perfect our spirituality.

So we pray, hoping for the best but not really expecting it. When we are sick we pray for healing but wonder if God actually wants us to be ill so that our faith in suffering glorifies him, purifies our soul, or has a purpose beyond our understanding. When we live with emotional pain and brokenness from our own bad choices we may see God as the Father who sternly remarks, “You made your bed, now you can lie in it.” Myriads of believers simply view their Heavenly Father as a distant replica of an earthly father who made promises he couldn’t keep, whose primary emotion was anger, or who was loving one day while distant and unpredictable the next.

When we have a mixed view of our Heavenly Father it is difficult to pray with faith or to pray at all. But prayer is the very thing that opens the valve so that the promises and the power of heaven can flow to us and through us. If we view God as distant, angry, or conditional then we will not pray at all (there’s no point in asking) or we will pray as if we have to convince, coerce, or nag God into blessing us.

So how do we understand this God who seems angry and vengeful in the Old Testament but is called “Abba” in the New Testament? John goes so far as to say that God is love and God is light. The key is Jesus. No matter how we understand the Old Testament or what kind of father we had on earth, Jesus clearly stated that when we have seen him we have seen the Father in heaven (see Jn.14:9).  If you want to know how much you are loved by the Father, look at the cross. If you want to know how God will deal with your sinful past, look at the Samaritan woman of John 4 and the woman caught in adultery in John 8. Ask yourself how many times Jesus turned down people who came to him for healing and how he dealt with Peter after Peter denied and abandoned Jesus in his hour of suffering.

According to Hebrews, Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory (the part of God’s goodness we can see) and the exact representation of the Father’s being (Heb. 1:3). When you see the heart of Jesus toward the broken and the suffering you see the heart of the Father. When you see the compassion of Christ toward the spiritually clueless you see the Father. When you see the anger and frustration of Jesus toward those who would deny the healing of God for the sick or who would drive sinners away rather than embrace them, you have seen the Father as well. The cross has allowed the love of God to overpower the judgment of God. And God is glad.

When you pray for the power of heaven to be released on your behalf, remember that the heart of the Father toward you is the same as the heart of Jesus. As loving fathers and mothers, we are not always so different from our heavenly Father. I always want the best for my children. When they were young and tumbled off their bikes, I ran to pick them up and bandaged their wounds. When they were afraid I comforted them. When they were confused I taught them. When they were in danger I protected them. When they laughed I laughed with them and when they did wrong I corrected them. All those things were motivated by love and, like most parents, I would have died to save my children.

Our heavenly Father did just that and is much more the loving Father and Mother than we could ever hope to be. When you pray, you can be certain that your Father in heaven is hearing and acting on your behalf. We can’t always know why we don’t see some prayers answered. There are mysteries yet to be understood. But we can always know the heart of our Heavenly Father toward us. If you have seen Jesus, you have seen the Father. If you have seen the cross you have seen his heart for you. Reflect on Jesus and his heart before you offer your next prayer. God is soooooooo for you!

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom.8:35-39)

Paul finishes this section of his letter, which translators have dubbed Romans 8, with a theological volley. It reveals the mindset of a spiritual warrior and a mindset that we must all adopt as we move into a probable season of persecution in the world and our nation. There is definitely a war on Christianity and Judaism unfolding all around the globe and we would be naïve to think we will escape it. The spirit of Anti-Christ is certainly on the move.

In the face of his own battles with this spirit, we should notice Paul’s emphasis in this section. It is not so much on power as it is on love. His great hope is the love of Christ and the devil’s inability to sever us from that love. As you look at this part of Paul’s letter, you realize that this love is a sustaining love. If you don’t watch the context, you might assume that Christ’s love keeps us from trouble in this world and just moves us from blessing to blessing as we live the good life above the fray. The context does not suggest that and Jesus never promised that either. In fact, what he did promise was persecution and trouble (see Matt.5:10-12 and John 16:33). He also promised great reward for those who did not abandon their faith in the midst of that trouble.

I have noticed an essential difference between our brothers and sisters in places like China and the Middle East and American believers. Those coming to Christ in “non-Christian” countries expect and even invite persecution and hardship for the sake of Jesus. They pray for strength to endure while we in America pray for God to deliver us from any hardships and almost take offense when they come.

Paul makes no promise that God’s umbrella of protection will keep us from struggles. To the contrary he uses words like hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword, death and slaughter to describe the potential Christian experience in this world. Paul’s hope is not in a life of ease and blessing in this world but in the love of Christ sustaining him in seasons of hardship as he presses toward the next life.

Many believers see hardship as evidence of God’s indifference or abandonment. Paul saw hardship as the normal course of the believer’s life while we push back against the dominion of darkness. But in the midst of that he experienced the love and faithfulness of the risen Lord. In fact, it is in the midst of battle and struggle that we truly discover the goodness and faithfulness of God. Because of that he saw himself as more than a conqueror. The Greek word means to “completely prevail” and is actually a verb declaring that we live in a state of absolute triumph. The “indicative mood” of the verb makes it clear that Paul sees this state as an actual rather than a potential or figurative view of the believer’s life. The paradox is that we truly are more than conquerors even while sitting in a “Chi-com” cell in a re-education camp outside of Beijing or in a hospital room watching a loved one fight a losing battle with cancer. Only an eternal and relational view of our faith makes that possible.

Ultimately, for our faith to endure we must believe that God is, that God is always good, and that God is always motivated by his love toward us. We must also believe that the “norm” is this world is hardship at some level. We live in fallen world. We still live in enemy territory. We still have bodies subject to aging and our own bad choices in diet and exercise. Hardship comes in the form of persecution, broken relationships, damaged genes, internal struggles against temptation, demonic attack, and more. (Don’t think about it or you won’t want to get out of bed in the morning.) It is the rare believer and, probably, the one who keeps a low profile on the devil’s radar that doesn’t encounter significant battles in this world.

The victory comes in knowing the ultimate outcome of every struggle and every encounter with the enemy. The victory is often apparent in this world but at other times it won’t seem so apparent except that the “big win” is always being with Jesus. In the movie, Saving Private Ryan, Captain John Miller (played by Tom Hanks) told his men that his primary objective in the war was to get home to his wife. Our primary objective must also be to get home and our primary mindset must be that this world is not our home. How often do we find believers who are angry at God because some saintly person they knew died. If our primary goal for ourselves and others is to be with Jesus then we should not be angry when those we love reach that goal – maybe envious but not angry.

Paul’s celebration was not about “the good life” on earth but that no person, no demon, and no circumstance can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. No doubt there will be seasons of blessing in this life but there will also be seasons of battle. In all of that, the love and grace of God is assured and we can take heart in that. We will never be alone and his grace will also be sufficient. Knowing that, we can live without fear as those whose ultimate triumph is absolute and absolutely assured. Be of good courage.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesusbecause through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. (Rom.8:1-4)

The certainty of our standing with God empowers us to live for him. In the days of the Old and New Testaments, Kings were absolutely sovereign and their declarations became law – standing orders from the King himself. Once it was law, all the forces of the kingdom would be brought to bear to enforce what the King had declared. Once it was law it was unchanging unless it was superseded by another law issued by the king due to a change in circumstances.

Paul tells us that those in Christ stand without condemnation because through Jesus the law of the Spirit of Life has set us free from the law of sin and death. There was once a law, a standing order, that those who sinned must die – the wages of sin is death. Sin was a manifestation of rebellion and rebellion was a capital crime in the kingdom. The consequence of sin for every man was separation and alienation from the Father and death was the prescribed penalty. But a change in circumstances occurred. God himself put on flesh and paid the penalty for all men who would accept his sacrifice and his Lordship in their lives. When that circumstance shifted a new law was declared – the Law of the Spirit of Life. God has declared and established an unchangeable law that for those who have faith in the word of God and the saving work of his Son, there is life imparted by the Spirit and all condemnation has been removed forever as long as there is faith. The assurance of our standing with God based on what Jesus did rather than the shortcomings of man should embolden us to take hold of every promise of heaven.

Jesus said, “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it” (Mt.11:12). I like that. Forceful men are those (both men and women) who believe aggressively in the promises of God and grab hold of every promise with the assurance that comes from knowing who they are in Christ. These are the folks who run over the devil to get to Jesus. These are the folks who stand on the Word of God and call the devil a liar to his face. This standing of righteousness and acceptance in heaven is not just for some but for all who believe – mature and immature, rich and poor, gifted and not so gifted, saintly or struggling and is the unchangeable law of heaven.

To be clear, the Holy Spirit does convict his children but that is vastly different from condemnation. Conviction is the work of redirecting our hearts, thoughts and actions while condemnation is the work of rejecting us. God does not reject those who trust in Jesus because for them there is no condemnation. The result is articulated in the Book of Hebrews. “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb.4:16). Later, in Romans 8, the apostle Paul confirms our sure position with the Father when he declare, “If God is for us who can be against us?” Several translations instruct us to come before the throne not just with confidence but with boldness. I believe God wants his children to live with a boldness that confronts the enemy and scatters him. We can do so because by one sacrifice we have been made perfect forever while God is making us holy. Know who you are. Know what Jesus has done in your life. Know your standing in heaven and live with the boldness of the Lion of the tribe of Judah. It is God’s will for your life!