Living with a Guarantee!

Job 17

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, January 30.

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like you weren’t going to make it out alive? It’s a scary place to be! Job was there, in a perfect storm of chronic pain, profound grief, and social rejection. He petitioned God in Job 17:1-3:

My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, the grave is ready for me. Surely mockers are with me, and my eye gazes on their provocation. Lay down, now, a pledge for me with Yourself; who is there that will be my guarantor?

Job made a legal request of God – to put down a pledge, to publicly stand with him, as proof of his innocence. With no one else to turn to, Job petitioned God to secure a favorable outcome with a guarantee. If God would not respond to his hopeful request, he would be left alone in his presumed guilt awaiting Sheol (Job 17:15-16).

The same is true for us – we, too, need an advocate! God responded to our need, as promised by Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:4-5:

For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.

In Live Like a Champion Today, I explained, “The Holy Spirit is the ‘pledge of our inheritance,’ meaning that the Holy Spirit guarantees delivery to the intended destination of Heaven (Ephesians 4:30).”[1] This promise brings us comfort and hope as we experience suffering and face death – to persevere with courage (2 Corinthians 5:6-8).

Seize the moment and live with the hopeful confidence that God has guaranteed your eternal life by giving you the pledge of the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 1:20-22; Ephesians 1:13-14).

God bless you!

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YOUTUBE:

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Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Jerry D. Ingalls, Live Like a Champion Today: The 40 Promises in 40 Days Challenge! (New Castle, IN: AGF Publishing LLC, 2022), 43.