Folks, it’s a rough world out there. I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know. Life isn’t fair and bad things happen to good people. I’m not trivializing our pain, I’m just being real. It is what it is.

Some days, I find myself buying into the hopelessness I see as I drive down the street, as I visit with those at work, as I scan social media. That’s all satan and his lies. He wants us to be afraid and doubtful. He wants good church-going folks to be fake Christians on Sunday and all-too-real people of the world the other six days of the week. He loves it when we hate on each other and find ways to split apart.

I’ve had the Holy Spirit on my mind a great deal lately. The more I read scripture, the more I realize His power and His purpose. The Holy Spirit is God and the Holy Spirit is Jesus. They are one.

In the beginning of John 16, Jesus is talking to his disciples, “…in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me.”

Wow!

Maybe I need to get my face out of my phone and into the Word. I can’t just rely on what I think it says. Even now, as I write this, I’ve been reading John 16 and some of the passages are speaking to me. Though I’ve read them before, tonight there is a new message for my life. I love that!

Hebrews 4:12 – For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

If you’re reading and rolling your eyes, bear with me. Church folks, we’re the ones who have pushed away some folks that God dearly loves. He placed them in our path in the hope that we’d be His hands and feet here on Earth. How’s that working out for Him? For them? For us?

I’m guilty, too. If Jesus told his disciples, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” then maybe I need to watch what I say, what I write and what I do. This world doesn’t know a loving Jesus because they’ve been hearing and watching the good church folks who are absolutely not reflecting what they say they believe. We’ve got no one to blame but ourselves when we preach one thing and practice something else.

I’m done beating my chest and trying to get others to change. I’m going to change me and leave the rest to God. I’ve got my hands full with me. I’m a mess; not as big a mess as I once was, but I sure don’t have it all figured out yet. I appreciate the Holy Spirit for living in a heart that still has a few cobwebs and dust mites.

Later in John 16, Jesus continues, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth.”

Jeremy Camp’s song, “Same Power”, reminds me that the same Holy Spirit that filled the apostles on the Day of Pentecost is the same Holy Spirit that fills me today. He brings the power of the Cross into my life each and every day. I don’t have to understand Him. I trust Him.

The colorful picture with this post is a heart and a cross. The cross was all about His love for us. The nails didn’t hold Jesus on that cross; His love for us did. He could have called 10,000 angels, but He didn’t. He loves us.

He loves us. He loves us. He loves us.

No ifs, ands or buts. He loves us.

Now, let’s go show ‘em how it’s done.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. — Romans 15:13