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[[http://www.jesusnetwork.eu/de/jn_de_2018_07_05|Deutsche Version]] [[Start|| Wiki Start]] [[topics_collection_ix|| Themen Kollektion ix ]]

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====== Strengthened through his Spirit ... ======

Thursday, July 5, 2018. How does life work? The world championship is nearly through - and some of us
are still racing teams, racing for the title. Others have gone home already, defeated. How does life work
for the defeated? How does it work for the winners? Let us think more about God's spirit in all of this,
and what he means for our life, for how life works ... 

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** Times of Strength and Times of Weakness ...**

There are times of strength, and there are times of weakness. I think in both of them we need to be
strengthened by the spirit. Our human strength can be a time where we are very weak and where we are
defeated by illusions. It can be times where we loose life! And in times of human weakness it is 
similar, we can be defeated, we can loose, moving into a state of despair.  
But we can also take the opportunity to be strengthened by the spirit - and we win! 
We win life eternal, day by day. 

Let us read a passage from Ephesians, chapter 3: 

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14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith — that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
</color> (Ephesians 3, 14 ff)

There is a lot here to learn and to take up. Rooted and grounded in love, learning about the breadth and 
length and height and depth. Learning about life with all its dimensions. 

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** Life Eternal ...**

What is our basic idea of life? Is it party? Is it winning? Is it partnership? Marriage? Friendship?
Is it sports and fun? Is it power? Is it fame? Is it music? There is so much in life?

Human life is given a frame. We experience birth, we start it all as infant. Then there is 
childhood, getting to know the world, with its ups and downs. There is the time of adolescence, of youth. 
There is the time when we are young adults, where we experience independence. There is the time
to find a partner, to start a family. There is the time
of responsibility for our own kids. Then the kids grow up. We get more responsibility in our 
professional life. And then we have to reduce, we have to fade out, we have to step back and give 
the younger generation the possibility to take over and realize their ideas. 

God wants to be in all of it. He should be in all of it. He is God eternal, and with him and in 
him all becomes life eternal. It is changed, since he is good, he is truth, he is the beginning and
the end. In him, we have reached our destination, in him we have solid ground. In him, we win when
we loose, and we win when we win. In him, we have been made complete already. Then, childhood and
adolescence, adulthood and old age become parts of the one story - the path with God eternal in 
our heart. 
(Roland Potthast)
[[http://www.jesusnetwork.eu/en/topics_collection_ix|... weitere Texte]]
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