Saturday, June 1, 2013

The Esteem of God

UV 770/10,000 The Esteem of God And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour Judges 6 v 12 God was calling into being that which is not as if it is already. Even the Lord needs to exercise faith. He does not see us as we are. He calls into being the qualities that He wants to see in us. Gideon till this point in time had done nothing to show that he was a courageous person or “ mighty man of valour”. Yet the Lord chose to call him so. He was hiding in a hole in the ground and threshing the wheat to hide it from the powerful Midianites whom he like the rest of Israel feared. If the Lord had not called him, he would have been a fearful farmer all his life. But the Lord intervened in his life with this angelic visitation. The Lord calls ordinary people and gives them an extraordinary work. He does an extraordinary work in them by revealing “His esteem of them” and does an extraordinary work with them. Gideon did not esteem himself too. He thought of himself as the least or the youngest in the smallest family in the smallest of the clans of Israel, namely Manasseh. But the esteem of the Lord transformed his vision of himself. God is the Lord of affirmation- He affirms us. The angel of the Lord affirmed that the Lord was with him. The truth that the Lord is with us as an Immanuel is enough to give us courage to face all the challenges of life, even a deadly enemy like the Midianites. In the natural, each of us would like to hide in a hole in the ground but the Lord first calls us and then He sends us clothed in His power. He will give us smart spiritual strategies and spiritually selected or anointed teams to execute it. But Gideon was not satisfied with the word of affirmation of the Lord. He wanted confirmation. When he prepared a meal of meat and placed it on the rock, the Lord sent down fire to consume it as a sign of acceptance and favour towards Gideon. A man with a prophetic gift once affirmed me by saying, “You are esteemed of God.” He said, “ You have good concepts. Form a team to translate the vision that you have received into action.” That gave me the courage and strength to move ahead in implementing some ideas for police reform even though I knew that I would meet with resistance from powerful quarters. With the Lord’s favour upon us, our ideas and actions will prosper. Prateep V Philip

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