Are there times when you feel afraid? Protection is the fifth spiritual principle in my book The Posture Principle: A practical guide to embracing your true calling. It comes as the first in ‘Week Two: Establishing’; the book being divided into three weeks. Having turned our focus in the first week toward the face of God, we now move to establish that focus. As always you can follow along with the book which you can find in the link in this paragraph. In this blog, I will share a quote and answer three questions to help you reflect.

‘The abiding principle remains abiding.’ – The Posture Principle, Martina Davis.

What do you mean, abiding? The overarching premise of knowing God’s protection, is that we are to abide in Him. John chapter 15 speaks of this. Once we are Jesus Christ’s, when we have accepted Him into our lives, we are called to ‘abide in Him, and He in us’. In fact it is a promise in which we have an activating role. As we learn to trust and live our lives in God’s presence, taught by the Holy Spirit, we will abide in Him. He calls Himself the Vine. We are the branches. Without Him we can do nothing and are alone. With Him, He tells us, we can bear much fruit and be His disciples.

How are we protected? Jesus is also our Shepherd. What do sheep do? They listen for the shepherd’s voice and run toward Him. When they are lost, the shepherd goes to look for them. When they are hurt, he binds up their wounds and heals them. When they are in danger, he gathers them and guards them. He feeds them and waters them, rests them and gives safe pastures. This too is what Jesus does for us. The sheep do not listen to someone pretending to be a shepherd whose voice they do not recognise, and they run away from wolves. We too need to discern the voice of God by the Holy Spirit, and recognise those who would harm us. Remember, sheep live in a flock, where they are safe; so we need fellow believers around us.

Why is this important to know? When we find ourselves in a difficult place, when we are frightened, when we are attacked, or when thoughts are simply swirling in our heads causing us to doubt who we are – we know we are in God and He is in us. This gives us an authority to be confident, to act decisively, to capture our swirling thoughts and bring them into submission to Christ. It means we are not striving to fight our own battles, or running away. We are standing firm. Our strategy is to stand. Jesus already won for us, and the battle is not ours to fight.

Keep on standing firm. Martina.