PLUS

UV 4121/10000 PLUS For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. 2 Timothy 1 v 7 If we look at the cross, it resembles the plus sign. Our faith in Jesus transforms all the negatives in our lives into positives. He gave us a spirit not of fear, one of the most powerful universal negatives present in every human, but power, love, understanding and self-control. We are therefore, to add to people around us joy, peace, strength. We are not to yield to any kind of fear. The greatest fear man has is the fear of death. The resurrection of Jesus gives us the hope and promise that we, too will resemble Him in death- that our bodies will be gloriously transformed like His. The cross that Jesus bore gives us strength to bear our own. The death He suffered on the cross frees us of the fear of punishment according to law at the hands of the Righteous Judge. Hence, Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” The truth of His death, resurrection and the spirit of power, love, understanding and self-control He gave to us after resurrection have set us free of fear. Having resembled Jesus in His death and holding the hope of resembling Him in His resurrection, we need now to resemble Him in our lives. We need to carry the cross or be a PLUS in this lifetime. We are to be sources of positivity in any situation. We are to encourage people to overcome their fears. In order to do so, we need to first understand what is the fear driving different people. We can ask the Spirit of God who dwells in us to impart the understanding, wisdom, discernment to help people overcome fears. Through the Holy Spirit, we have access to the absolute power of God. His strength will be revealed in our weaknesses as we yield to Him. We need to understand the many and great dimensions of the love of Christ manifested towards us. Having understood that love, we should then reflect it to others around us. The Holy Spirit also imparts the discipline, the grace, the power to control our own selves- our thoughts, emotions, words, actions, reactions so that we show ourselves to be people of the PLUS or the cross. It is interesting that even after we surrender our hearts and lives to Christ, we are not controlled by the Lord but that our selves have a role and autonomy to decide for ourselves, to make choices according to His counsel, direction and leading. Self control does not only mean how we deal with negatives like anger, lust, pride, fear but how we propel ourselves forward, remain motivated to excel for God’s glory, stay grateful and graceful.