There is one thing that many of us can all agree on.  Everybody wants to be loved and needs love — the kind of love that is genuine, appreciative love that is unrelated to its merit.  Sometimes we can get that type of love from our parents.  They might forgive us for anything we do to mess up our lives.  But life can come at us hard.  We’re born, and our parents raise us to the best of their abilities (those of us who had loving parents).  But somewhere along the line we separate from our parents.  We cut the apron strings and begin to find out what life is really about.  Our personal development continues as we make mistakes, seek forgiveness, and recover from those mistakes.  How we deal with the fallout from those who either don’t understand our position or are unwilling to forgive what we’ve done becomes the crucible where we are tested by fire.  And if the fallout from those who have not taken our mistake kindly is strong enough, it can have a devastating effect on us spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically.  Not everyone can easily brush off resentment, hatred, anguish, back-biting, and abandonment that comes from those closest to us.  And regrettably, not everyone has a relationship with God.  But for those of us who do, there is great comfort in knowing that in the midst of life’s trials and tragedies and other people’s plans and schemes for retribution, we have a God who is ready to save us.  And we are so confident in our God’s willingness to show us mercy and save us that we go to God believing that God is our savior, that God is willing to save us, and trusting that God will do — out of God’s faithfulness, mercy, and unfailing love — that which allows us to live in safety.

• What do you think it’s like to be on the retaliatory end of other people’s anger and resentment?
• What is your experience of turning to God to be saved in your times of trial or distress?
• How did you learn that God was trustworthy to save and be merciful?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful God, when it seems as if my world is crashing all around me, keep me mindful that when I cry out to You, You alone can always show mercy and save me.

         Fanny J. Crosby penned one of the most accurate and complete songs of what it means to live a triumphant life when she wrote,

       “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine,

       O what a foretaste of glory, divine.

       Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

       born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.”

         Those words are a comfort to all who believe and sing it because we acknowledge the fullness of God’s power to give us a triumphant life in this life we have now, with the promise of a triumphant eternal life to come following our resurrection.  In this song, we acknowledge Jesus’s death as the perfect sacrifice for our sins.  And that belief is filled with promises that God has made by virtue of our faith in God’s Son.  It provides us freedom from everything that separates us from God.  It provides us the assurance that we are children of God, heirs of salvation, and as such, we are honored — by virtue of God’s grace — to receive everything that God has promised to Jesus because of his faithfulness.  It provides us the assurance that (like Jesus) death has no hold over us and that as Jesus was raised from the dead, so too will we be raised.  That means that we have already achieved through God’s generous nature the triumphant life even though we now live facing all of the challenges we encounter by our humanity.  It is indeed a blessing to be assured that in Jesus Christ, our victory is already won.  Our lives are triumphant because of his power and grace.

• What song gives you the comfort and assurance that a triumphant life is God’s guarantee to you because you believe that Jesus is God’s Son?
• In what ways do you live to show your gratitude for all Christ has done for you to provide this triumphant life?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, thank you for looking beyond my faults and seeing my need to live a triumphant life. I praise You for thinking of me when you sacrificed Your Son that I might have eternal life.

         The triumphant life is so easy, and at the same time, so difficult to attain.  A simple acknowledgment that Jesus is the Son of God seems to do the trick.  It’s as easy as that.  And yet, the difficult part is not just saying it but living it as a truth in our lives.  We all know people who have claimed the prize and then laid it down and left it for some bright, shiny, object that has nothing to do with love for Christ or the things of the Spirit.  Just as certainly as we can claim the truth, there are temptations to distract us, to draw us away from the truth that we’ve come to know and the triumphant life that God has promised us.  Therein lies the danger of death — our inability to rely on the love God has for us, but to continually live as if God has no part of us and we have no part with God.  What cements our triumphant life is God’s grace — that which is unearned — and yet, continues to be the determining factor of our trust in God.  It is the faith factor that says to God that we are trusting in the righteousness of God’s Son, Jesus the Christ, and not on our own righteousness.  Christ has already triumphed over the world so that we are counting on God’s faithfulness to his Son, and Christ’s faithfulness to God for our triumphant life.  And it is God’s Spirit alive in us which is our guarantor that God is alive in us and we are alive and living within the relationship promise of eternal life.

• What is it about God’s Spirit that assures you that you are living in God and that God is living is you?
• What — beyond your confession that Christ is the Son of God — that affirms that you are living being led by the Holy?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy God, let Your Holy Spirit alive in me be my assurance that my faith in Christ as Your Son and Your grace are all I need to live a triumphant life.