1 - Introduction - Living like a real Christian LOVE | Page 4

Prayer Thought: Today would be a good day to see what holes might be in your bucket. The
only way to plug them is through true repentance and requesting that God would refill your
bucket to overflowing. I pray that we will be courageous enough to acknowledge the holes in
our buckets and bold enough to request God to refill the bucket of all of the beautiful power
that comes from His Holy Spirit. I am so glad that God is the God of second-chances. Won’t
you respond to this today as you personally do the “hole-in-the-bucket” exercise, I’ll be doing
it as well.

TUESDAY
Judges 6
The story of Gideon, as per our reading above, helps to affirm the thesis that we
established yesterday that you are “stronger than you think”. When the angel of the
Lord spoke with Gideon and told him to go in the strength that he had to deliver Israel
from the Midianites, Gideon was totally unaware of any strength at all. It was not humility
that made Gideon declare his weakness, but it was a victim’s mentality instead. Before
Gideon could become effective for God he had to realise afresh the power of God in him to
fulfil the purpose of God through him. When Gideon was told by the angel to go and
deliver Israel from the Midianites he needed to realise that God was not playing a trick on
him and asking him to do something that he could not do, God, we know, would never be
so mean as to do that and it is difficult for us to understand that, as well as the fact that
God will only ever tell you to do something that He knows full well, you can do.
When Jesus commands us to “Love one another” as He has loved us, He sets the bar
incredibly high. We look at the high ideal that Christ has set and are shocked to realise
that in fact He is being serious in telling us to do something that ordinarily we never
thought that we would be able to do. That is why for us to love as Christ would love and to
model His life before men it has to be a supernatural act of God. We also know that in
order for God’s supernatural work to happen there needs to be an obedience factor from
our side. How often have we not said in church recently that if we would obey God by
doing the possible that He would then do the impossible? Scripture is so full of great
examples that illustrate this truth. God said to Moses that He wanted him to lead the
children of Israel across the Red Sea, and Moses would have answered him by saying that
that is impossible. God would then have said to Moses to do the possible by raising his
stick and if he did that which is possible then He [God] will do the impossible. You know
the story - Moses agreed by realising that that is one thing he could do, and as he did that
which he could do, God responded by doing what only He [God] could do.
We therefore have to assume that when Jesus tells us to love one another unconditionally
He is not telling us to do something that we cannot do. When we love Christ with our