Greetings 🖖
Jesus never promised his followers a bed of roses. If you expect to be loved by the world, you have wandered into the wrong religion. To the contrary, Jesus warned:
“Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. Matthew 10: 21-23 (NKJV).
“For you will be expelled from the synagogues, and the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing a holy service for God. This is because they have never known the Father or me. Yes, I’m telling you these things now, so that when they happen, you will remember my warning. I didn’t tell you earlier because I was going to be with you for a while longer.”
John 16: 2-4 (NLT)
In other words, it’s complicated!
Greetings 👋
How are you today? I have good news. We are not defenseless. We have a God who sees, hears, and rectifies wrongs done against us. Let’s praise our way out of the problem.
“My shield is God Most High, who saves the upright in heart.
God is a righteous judge, a God who displays his wrath every day.
If he does not relent, he will sharpen his sword; he will bend and string his bow.
He has prepared his deadly weapons; he makes ready his flaming arrows.
Whoever is pregnant with evil conceives trouble and gives birth to disillusionment.
Whoever digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit they have made.
The trouble they cause recoils on them; their violence comes down on their own heads.
I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness; I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High.”
Psalm 7: 10-17 (NIV).
Greetings 👋
How many of us can say this and truly mean it? I can say it, and I do, but am I willing to share in his suffering? God knows!
“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”
Philippians 3: 7-11 (NIV).
