The Spirit of the Lord
Most of us vastly underestimate the importance of the Holy Spirit. Many believers go through the day and never think about their need to have the Spirit empower them and guide them. This is why they fail so miserably to do God's will. God knew we would need His strength to overcome Satan and his demons, so He planned to give every Christian His Spirit to accomplish that victory. In the Old Testament the Spirit was not in every believer. He was "on" prophets, kings, and other special people to empower them for the Lord's service. Since Samson was chosen by God to be a judge and deliver the Israelites from the Philistines, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him powerfully to accomplish God's will. (Judges 15:14) Once when they tied Samson up with ropes, the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him, and the ropes on his arms and wrists became like burnt flax and fell off. Just think, now each of us, as believers, has the Spirit and His great power living in us all of the time.
Let me just say to begin, there is nothing we can't do by the power of the Holy Spirit, as Christians, as long as it is God's will for us to do it. We have no need to be afraid of what others will do to us. God is with us. He can overpower our enemies or cause us to escape. He gives us not only physical strength, at times, but even more importantly, He gives us spiritual strength to do God's will. In fact, the Bible tells us that we have the same power in us that raised Jesus from the dead. (Ephesians 1:19,20) Jesus lived a sinless life, while He was here as the God/Man, because of the power of the Holy Spirit and His full submission to the Father. Now, we can't be sinless completely, but we can grow strong in the power of the Lord and become very much like Jesus, since we have the Spirit in us. That is why it is absurd for any believer to say "I can't" when it comes to following the Lord and doing His will. God's Spirit is the One who is always able to make us able to do whatever God wants us to do. I pray we will all appreciate the presence of the Spirit and rely upon Him fully each day, so we can be overcomers for the Lord.
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Tomorrow, I intend to read Judges 16-19.