For the Sake of His Name

Today I awake to the conflicting emotions of hope and despair. Despair over what I see in the natural and hope in the realm of the potential unknown.

I call to the Spirit as He calls to me. "Please, fill me with Your faith, Holy One!", and immediately He answers.

The Holy Spirit answers and speaks into my meditations. I yearn to know Him better. He knows this about me and is always available and ready to reveal Himself. I ask Him to manifest Himself in His fruit to me, from within me...He brings forth His peace and His faith.

In the process, the Holy Spirit always takes me to His Word. My intimate Counselor, who knows my thoughts. my fears, my conflicts, my struggles with what I see and how I feel, always punctuates His personal messages through the Word of God, which is the Sword of the Spirit; His Sword!

I meander through the mental images and the guilt the enemy tries to impose. His evil arrows are flying into my thoughts, "You are such a loser!" "Why would God do anything for you?" "Just suck it up and tough it out". "You're on you own..figure it out yourself".

The attack is on my hope. I confess I need miracles, my family needs miracles, my friends and loved ones need miracles, the Church needs miracles. I confess my failure to be "worthy" in and of myself. The world is so dark and the times are so treacherous, without the Lord moving in a powerful, miraculous way, we are all "toast". Here is where I get overwhelmed by despair.

But then, the Spirit takes me to Ezekiel 36:22-27. The hope for me is that the Lord does what He does not because I deserve it, but He does what He does for the sake of His Holy Name. What a relief. It's not about me.

Even though my life is not the reflection of complete Holiness as it will be one day. Even though sometimes my decisions and actions have "profaned" His Name among the people around me. Even though my "self-rule and self-idolatry" has made it necessary for the Lord's discipline to rest heavy on my life at times, still my hope is secure. For the Lord is not a man that He should lie. He has said that He will never leave me nor forsake me, and now He confirms in Ezekiel 36:27 that "I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow My decrees".

The Lord possesses me. I am His. Because of who He is, I am safe. This is the Holiness and Hope: It is no longer I who live but Christ (through His Spirit) lives in me. It is His Holy Spirit who gives me the strength and courage to live in hope and faith as I follow His decrees.

Here is the confidence and assurance. The One who formed the universe upholds my life and circumstances. He will do His miraculous things, not because I am so worthy but in spite of the fact that I am not. He will do miraculous things in and through my life and yours for the sake of His Holy Name.

May we all stand in awe of the Holy One, celebrate Who His is and Worship His Holy Name.

The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?