Let Us Take Courage. Let Us Believe.

John 16:31

Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe?

The apostles spent three years with Jesus.  Yet when He was ready to leave them, He had to take a lengthy amount of time explaining to them who He was.  When He completed His explanation, He posed a question to them, "Do you now believe?"

Are we not just like the apostles?  Even though we have spent years in prayer, years in the reading of  the Word, years in worship and years in serving God, we manage to lose our sense of who Almighty God really is and the certainty of all the promises that He has given us through His Son, Jesus Christ.  Sadly, as if Jesus Christ left the earth and left us to our own wiles, we turn toward the world for answers.  We somehow find ourselves overlooking that our all-sufficient Lord provided us with a Wonderful Counselor who stands ready to supply our every need.

Let us be reminded that Jesus promised that His Holy Spirit would be with us and would comfort and guide us.  To believe otherwise is to have a complete lack of faith.  To believe otherwise is to deny what Jesus said He came to earth to do.  "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."

Let us take courage as Jesus commands us.  Let us believe.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the comfort and guidance that You provide through Your Holy Spirit.  We bless the name of Jesus who came to earth so that we may have peace and we may overcome the tribulations of the world.  We pray, Father, that Your Holy Spirit will help us to dig deep into our relationship with You.  May we dig so deep that we never again turn to the world for counsel without having gone to You first.  Help us, Lord, to believe for more than we believe is possible through our own efforts.  Teach us how to wait on You for Your good and perfect timing in all things.  We ask these things in the name of the One that is with us until the end of the age, Jesus Christ.