John 16:31-33The Message
31-33 Jesus answered them, “Do you finally believe? In fact, you’re about to make a run for it—saving your own skins and abandoning me. But I’m not abandoned. The Father is with me. I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.”
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
I Will Lift Up My Eyes Praying for Peace in the Chaos
“If there is really a God you want me to believe in, why then is there always so much chaos, trouble everywhere we look, why doesn’t God just take it away?”
Standing in a super market check out line getting my groceries for the week, I got into a line where the customer ahead of me was trying to engage the clerk.
Her message was a simple one in this Christmas season – Happy Holidays and of course, Merry Christmas – but the cashier responded – not in my streets, not in my neighborhood, not in my city where I always read about someone killed.
The cashier’s experience was obviously very different and was far more tragic.
She then told the customer ahead of me that her neighbors son was just killed by someone- yet to be caught – who walked up to that teenager and shot him.
A Christmas Season now checkered, now colored, by that worst kind of chaos – the loss of a son who was out trying to shop for a Christmas gift for his mom.
Pick up any local newspaper, watch any local news channel, turn on your own computer or iPad or Smartphone and that kind of news is literally everywhere.
Your own life is moving along at its own good pace, in its own good place, in a state of relative peace and quiet and tranquility – then comes the belly buster.
The reality that not all is well, not all is peaceful, not “kosher in their kitchen!”
Things go real somber, sullen and quiet in your own heart in a real big hurry.
Just how fast can peace, joy and the good life life turn on the proverbial dime?
How fast can it turn into something we want to throw away as far as we can?
How does this truth color and checker our own Christmas experience realizing that the person or the people we encounter directly in front of us, the silent and quiet ones, are those whose place of peace, joy and goodwill is now, shattered?
Stop, and think about that today as you go about your day at work or in school.
As you smile, please quietly reflect, fervently pray for those who pass you by.
Reflect on today’s verse from the Gospel of John Chapter 16 verse 33, perhaps making a substantial effort to memorize it and then mightily pray it forward:
John 16:33 Amplified Bible
33 I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace. In the world you have tribulation and distress and suffering, but be courageous [be confident, be undaunted, be filled with joy]; I have overcome the world.” [My conquest is accomplished, My victory abiding.]
Pray it forward for the people on the highways and the streets you drive on as you go to work, or go to school, or go to the supermarket and get your groceries, for the strangers on the stores and in the streets, as you watch that daily news.
Keeping in mind that Jesus never promised His followers the absence of trouble.
Nowhere in any of His Gospel narratives does He teach to us, preach to us, that as a result of His coming, dying, rising, and ascending, the world is going to be that more peaceful place or that our place in it is going to be more comfortable.
In TRUTH, what He says to us is this: “In the world you will have tribulation.”
Sometimes we desperately want to import to now that which is promised only for then—that is, for the eternal future of peace of which Christ has assured us.
We might want to claim only for ourselves, just for today all those promises—of God, all the blessed assurances of Jesus’ salvation – wealth, healing, or absence of tribulation—that God intends to bring into fruition during the age to come.
Except, there is an important caveat which Jesus’ commanded us not to ignore:
John 10:11-18 Easy-to-Read Version
11 “I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. 12 The worker who is paid to keep the sheep is different from the shepherd. The paid worker does not own the sheep. So when he sees a wolf coming, he runs away and leaves the sheep alone. Then the wolf attacks the sheep and scatters them. 13 The man runs away because he is only a paid worker. He does not really care for the sheep.
14-15 “I am the shepherd who cares for the sheep. I know my sheep just as the Father knows me. And my sheep know me just as I know the Father. I give my life for these sheep. 16 I have other sheep too. They are not in this flock here. I must lead them also. They will listen to my voice. In the future there will be one flock and one shepherd.[a] 17 The Father loves me because I give my life. I give my life so that I can get it back again. 18 No one takes my life away from me. I give my own life freely. I have the right to give my life, and I have the right to get it back again. This is what the Father told me.”
There are a few others who are standing in front of us, working right next to us, driving and walking right by us, shopping in the same stores as us, in front of us in the super market check out lines, behind the cash registers serving our needs.
We do not know their stories, we are not privy to their lives at home or at work.
We know they have their stories, and blessed assurance, Jesus knows them all!
Yes, His kingdom has broken into our world with the advent of Christ.
But you, me, we, and all of those people around us, still await its full benefits.
And we “leave someone, their “known but to God” story behind, not prayed for?
And if we make the mistake of thinking that God has promised us today what He has in fact only promised us in eternity, then we will certainly be disappointed, and we will run the risk of turning our backs on Him on the basis that we did not pray for and deliver, He did not deliver what He had never actually promised us.
But though like Jesus taught in that Upper Room to His disciples, we can expect to encounter trouble and tribulation right now simply because we follow Jesus as our King, we’ll pray for others, we still have hope for true peace in this world.
Apostle Paul writes, “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1, emphasis added).
This is a peace with God that we can claim now as our own.
This is a peace with God we can, always should be, fervently praying forward.
For us and all of those who are around us, it is ultimate freedom from the fear of judgment and death, from recrimination, and from all the dredging up of all the vileness that Christ has already – once and forever – 100% dealt with at Calvary.
The true gospel is the “good news of peace through Jesus Christ” (Acts 10:36).
We still have trials.
We will groan, suffer under the weight of sin—both our own and that of others.
But in the good news of the gospel we have a true and steady peace, even in turbulent times.
“Let not your hearts be troubled,” says Jesus, “neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27).
We may not feel like it’s true today, but the #1 unchangeable truth remaining is our Lord and Savior Jesus has already overcome the world and all its troubles.
We await His second Advent, the day is not yet here when He will dry all the tears from your eyes, but you can know that that day will arrive, for there is nothing in all of the world that can prevent Jesus bringing His final victory.
In the meantime, you can know, we can know, you and I can share, we can pray it forward at every kingdom opportunity that Jesus always stands with you and me and everybody else, by His Holy Spirit, no matter what “trouble” meets us.
What tribulation faces you today?
What tribulation do we not face but others directly in from of us, assuredly do?
Be sure that Jesus is with you in it and that Jesus will bring you through it—that Jesus will bring them through it too for He has overcome the world! Take heart!
1. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.
Refrain:
This is my story, this is my song,
praising my Savior all the day long;
this is my story, this is my song,
praising my Savior all the day long.
2. Perfect submission, perfect delight,
visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
angels descending bring from above
echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
(Refrain)
3. Perfect submission, all is at rest;
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
watching and waiting, looking above,
filled with his goodness, lost in his love.
(Refrain)
Blessed Assurance Text: Fanny J. Crosby, 1820-1915
This IS My Story: Blessed Assurance Jesus Is Mine
In that Upper Room, Jesus told the disciples that he, and they, would suffer.
And, even though the disciples would experience mourning and pain after Jesus’ death, the Holy Spirit would be sent, would come to comfort them.
Ultimately, the disciples’ peace would be in Christ; a peace which is eternal.
The unavoidable truth is that we all have trouble in this life, Christian or not.
But we also have a Mighty God who in the beginning spoke, brought order from the chaos, light from the darkness, creation from the great void of nothingness, who is with us-with that sacred and blessed assurance we are to be courageous, encouraged, no matter what we face as our #1 hope is Jesus who has overcome.
We can be at peace, can face anything; as we too have overcome because of Him.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Psalm 16 Easy-to-Read Version
A miktam of David.
16 Protect me, God, because I depend on you.
2 Some of you[a] have said to the Lord,
“You are my Lord.
Every good thing I have comes from you.”
3 But you have also said about the gods[b] of this land,
“They are my powerful gods.
They are the ones who make me happy.”
4 But those who worship other gods will have many troubles.
I will not share in the gifts of blood they offer to their idols.
I will not even say their names.
5 Lord, you give me all that I need.
You support me.
You give me my share.
6 My share[c] is wonderful.
My inheritance[d] is very beautiful.
7 I praise the Lord because he taught me well.
Even at night he put his instructions deep inside my mind.[e]
8 I always remember that the Lord is with me.[f]
He is here, close by my side,
so nothing can defeat me.
9 So my heart and soul will be very happy.
Even my body will live in safety,
10 because you will not leave me in the place of death.
You will not let your faithful one rot in the grave.
11 You will teach me the right way to live.
Just being with you will bring complete happiness.
Being at your right side will make me happy forever.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 