Acts 23:11

New International Version (NIV)

The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.”

For meditation

If any officer inspired confidence in the officers and men in the Royal Navy in his time, it was Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson. Sir Robert Stopford, who was commander of one of the ships that Nelson used to chase the combined fleet of the French and the Spanish to the West Indies, wrote in a letter about that audacious and desperate adventure, and the hardships they experienced. “We are half-starved and otherwise inconvenienced by being long out of port. But our reward is that we are with Nelson.”

Nothing refreshes the heart than the confident assurance that we are with Christ and He is with us when we go through the rough seas of life on every stormy night. Like the sight of an oasis in the desert beyond the horizon, the certainty of the presence of Jesus when we go through difficult times, has the ability to renew our strength and courage.

The Apostle Paul may have felt that way when, in the night after his rough experience before the Sanhedrin, the Lord stood by him and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome” (Acts 20:11). True to His assurance to His disciples in the Great Commission – “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:20) – Jesus brought encouragement to Paul and inspired him more than Sir Nelson ever did for his troops. The greatest cheer we have is that Jesus is alive and active in our lives. While human beings who may inspire us can go only so far, all power belong to our Jesus and He can do all things for us according to His will.

1. What storm is raging in your life?
2. How dark is the night around you?
3. Do your wearisome experiences seem ending?
4. Do you sense your hopes slipping away with each experience?
5. Have you forgotten what God has promised His children, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Heb. 13:5)?

I pray that you can confidently say with the Hebrews writer, “The lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?” (6).

So: May you pick yourself up and move in the confident assurance that because you are with Christ, you are more than a conqueror (Rm. 8:37); and may that thought inspire you to turn your hardships into opportunities and bring glory to God the Father in Christ Jesus.

Confident assurance of God’s presence dispels every fear and strengthens our resolve in difficult times.

Shalom