“Blessed are the undefiled in the way, Who walk in the law of the LORD. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, And that seek him with the whole heart. They also do no iniquity: They walk in his ways. Thou hast commanded us To keep thy precepts diligently. O that my ways were directed To keep thy statutes! Then shall I not be ashamed, When I have respect unto all thy commandments. I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, When I shall have learned thy righteous judgments. I will keep thy statutes: O forsake me not utterly.”
Psalm 119:1-8 KJV,https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.119.1-8.KJV
Power, Love, and Discipline
One of the miracles of salvation is that when we have faith in Christ, God not only saves us—He also gives us the power to live according to His will. Your life in Christ is one that is empowered by the Holy Spirit living within you.
This is a great gift, but a big shift. It often takes time to change how we think and act. We may have bad habits that take hard work to correct, or patterns of thought that are challenging to break.
Thankfully, God promises to be with us and to empower us to make these changes in our life. When Paul is writing to his mentee Timothy, he encourages him to continue to develop the gift that God has given to him. While we are saved in an instant, it takes a lifetime to develop and work out what God is doing inside of us.
Paul reminds Timothy that God’s Spirit does not give us fear or cowardice. Those things are tools of the devil who is trying to keep us from God. But the Spirit of God empowers us with confidence in Him. He gives us the ...