Who can you redeem? You may say that the technical answer is no one, since I am the redeemer. Yet have you heard stories of those whose lives have been turned around and transformed because someone else could see in them a future they could not see for  themselves and believed in them enough to affirm them in it? This requires love and discernment and a willingness to invest in someone else. Do you have what it takes? If discernment is the only thing you are lacking I can supply that. You are doing my work if you further my redemptive purpose in other people. Who can you redeem?

Do you think that those who are breathing are alive, and those who do not are not? Yet my word speaks of those who are dead in sin, or dead even while they live. Haven’t you encountered people who function in such a way that they seem dead inside? Life is found in connections and relationships. So do you find that those who are alienated and isolated seem in some sense to be lifeless? Let us be more hopeful and look at the other end of the spectrum. I promised my followers an abundant life. Do you see the connection between this and the promise for a multitude of brothers and sisters?

While not as common today, many of our biblical heroes interacted with angels. For example, Daniel engaged various angels in visions by day and in dreams by night (Dan. 7–12). Similarly, Zechariah had a long-ranging conversation with “the angel who was speaking to him” that lasted no less than six full chapters (Zech. 1–6).

You know that it is wrong to engage in self-promotion. You have seen how unattractive this is in other people. Yet there is also a false humility that would like other people to be more enthusiastic about and more eager to advance your ideas than you are. What would be more validating to you than that? But this is not a reasonable expectation. Is there another alternative? Recognize that your ideas are from me. Then you can hold them with true humility and move them forward in my timing as you are led by the Spirit. In this case you are serving and promoting me rather than yourself.