Believing. Be living?

I was lazy today. emphasis on "was". (I believe laziness comes in seasons. especially seasons when I have to be hardworking.) So I hitched a ride from my dad to work, and we had a very interesting conversation about believing. Sometimes, we develop this inferiority complex thing where we tell ourselves, we can't do this. And sometimes, people tell us it's too difficult. But hearing stories about how he overcame many obstacles because he believed in himself really impressed me. (this sounds like some sappy drama serial but some of those obstacles really scared me) He shld be a researcher man. or rather I'm doing the job, and he's living it out. He told me, "I told myself, there must be a way out, I can find it." That amazed me.

I realized for a long time now, courage is an important core value in the Kingdom of God. If a man can do it by himself, how much more if God is for him? As I write this, still I am struggling to gather courage, because "we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved." (Hebrews 10:39) I mean where do we get this idea where humility is just doing what we can, and lowering ourselves and who we are to what we are not?

For God said,
"He who is coming will come and not delay.
But my righteous ones will live by faith.
And if he shrinks back,
I will not be pleased with him." (Hab 2:3,4)

And that scares me. I struggle with fear (well, definitely, if it scares me haha). But what scares me more is that in Revelation 21:8, the cowardly are left outside the kingdom. And it's not like it's only in Revelation. Even when Moses sent twelve men to spy on the land of canaan before they enter in. Ten (that means twelve minus joshua and caleb), said those dudes, we can't beat them they will squash us. Their city is large. We will most certainly die.

But Caleb silenced the ten, saying,
"We SHOULD go up and take possession of the land, for WE CERTAINLY CAN DO IT."

Man, that Caleb was really something. Numbers 13. And in Numbers 14, God doesn't allow any of them to enter except Joshua and Caleb, and of Caleb, He said in verse 24,

"No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see [the promised land]. But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it."

And again God talks about him in Deut 1:36. And the best part, Joshua gives him the land Hebron, because [same reason as in Numbers 14:24]. And I checked up Hebron, because God asked me to. And Hebron means "coupled with, allied". And it's the same word that God used to described Abraham as His friend!

MAN! Amazing. Faith really is directly linked to courage. And God is looking for courageous people to be His friends. Courageous people get that honor.

Wow man. Me, I suffer from being timid. feeling inferior. so does Paul, he came to the corinthians in weakness and fear. but God is looking for us to cry out like in Acts 4, "MAKE US BOLDER!"

I always ask myself when I think about fear, what makes Peter go from being afraid of slave girls to being so courageous he was able to be picky about how he was going to be martyred. That astounds me. Because there's supernatural courage that comes from communing with the Holy Spirit. Being filled with Him. And this courage is super natural, we don't have to try, it comes out naturally because of our relationship with the Holy Spirit. And in developing a relationship with Him, a Godly courage is also developed in us.

Yap this is what I'm praying for, a deeper lifestyle with the Holy Spirit that emboldens us to become who we are, and who we are destined to be. "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalm 139:14