Be Strong and Courageous

Dear Saints, the Scriptures often exhort us to be strong and courageous. The power in that phrase resonates with us. We all want to be strong and courageous. We are drawn to strength and courage.

However, we often find ourselves weak and cowardly. How can we live in such a contradiction in terms that is the human condition?
Thanks be to God that He takes the weak and beggarly things of the world to confound the powerful and worldly wise.

This meal is a perfect example of God’s intention for us. Because we are weak and cowardly, the Lord condescends to give us tangible signs of His love and care for us. He gives us the waters of baptism that mark us as His own. He gives us bread and wine to show us that He gave us the body and blood of His Son.

We look at the water and the bread and the wine, things we can see, to give us strength and courage to believe in the God whom we cannot see. These signs bolster our faith and in faith we walk into the future, into struggle, into sickness, even into the valley of the shadow of death, and we fear no evil, for God is with us. 

In Christ, be strong and courageous.