Bold And Daring

Happy 2014!

A couple of days ago, I read a Facebook friend’s review of a new movie. One of his readers breathlessly wrote that the film was “bold and daring.”

This film appears to be full of illicit sex, infidelity, lots of drug use, and people generally being rotten to each other. In other words, a whole lot of glorifying a whole lot of darkness.

Those words “bold” and “daring” continued to stay with me all day long and throughout the rest of the week.

What if, in this new year, we decide to live a bold and daring life?

The words bold and daring do not just apply to the broken things and cheap imitations of this world.

Jesus Christ lived the boldest, most daring life ever. God walking the earth in human form is radical.

God went for the jugular when He sent His own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In His Son Jesus, He personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. –Romans 8:3-4

And since it is His very Spirit that lives inside believers, why in the world tiptoe in fear through this  life?

Jesus was not afraid to step into our disordered mess.

Which disordered mess in your life had you cowering through much of 2013? Armed with His supernatural strength and faith in His promises that cannot fail, march right into the center of that mess, trust Him to transfigure it to His glory and your good, and give Him all the praise in 2014!

A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death..God Himself has taken up residence in your life!—Romans 8:2,9

Do not let the world co-opt the words bold and daring.

Allow the world around you to see what Jesus can do through one person who is completely surrendered to Him!

Dare to live the life of the freed! 

What are you afraid of?!

The Lord God is your strength, your personal bravery, and your invincible army..He makes you to walk, not to stand still in terror but to walk and make progress… —Habakkuk 3:19.

As my pastor recently said, “You are invincible until the Lord calls you home.”

Do you know what invincible means? Just this: “incapable of being conquered, defeated, or subdued.”

Let me ask you this: What would your life look like if you went forth from this moment on and lived as one  who is incapable of being conquered, defeated, or subdued because of the fact that Jesus Christ Himself lives in you?”

That is the very definition of one who lives a bold and daring life!

This is a new year, a fresh start.

His marvelous and astonishing mercies are new every single morning.

Today really can be different.

This year really can be different.

Your heritage in Him is victory.

He offers that very thing to you as He beckons you to follow Him fearlessly and joyfully into the next 365 days.

Will you take it?

The resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike, “What’s next, Papa?”—Romans 8:15