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Showing posts with the label Endurance

Rejoicing in God's Strength

Philippians 4:1-13 Many of us, when we were children, learned stories about what we might call the heroes of the Bible.   If you’re like me, a male who grew up with Superman and Batman, you may have liked the ones about Samson, Gideon and David.  These guys are like super heroes who do great and wondrous things, often with seemingly superhuman strength, only they do it with divine power and not superpowers.   Samson does great things in the name of God, but he’s also morally challenged.  He does bring down a temple with his bare hands, though he died in the incident.  As to the secret of his success, he apparently was the Fabio of his day, because his secret had something to do with his hair! As for Gideon, he doesn’t have superhuman strength, but somehow he’s able to defeat the Amalekites whose troops numbered in the thousands with a small team of just 300 fighters.   Apparently God wanted Gideon’s enemies to understand that God was in t...

PEACE WITH GOD

Romans 5:1-5 What is peace? Is it a nice, quiet spot in a grassy meadow to take a nap? That’s called "peace and quiet?" It’s fleeting, but it’s welcome. There’s something called peace of mind, which happens when we have a clear conscience. Peace can be the absence of war, but that kind of peace is rare. Just as one war ends, it seems like another one starts. I doubt anyone in the room remembers the slogans, but World War I was supposed to be the war that ended all wars. Unfortunately it wasn’t long before an even bigger war began. I’m for peace, in all its forms, but there’s a kind of peace that’s not determined by our circumstances, and that’s peace with God. It’s a peace that surpasses understanding. Peace with God Peace with God is a gift that’s received by faith in the one who makes us right with God. This is what justification means. And it’s Jesus who is the one who extends God’s grace to us so that we can experience peace with God. This grace is needed because too of...