I feel like there are sometimes when we think that because we are in Christ that hard times will not come to us. Far to many preachers go around saying that because Christ is living in us that we will never face trouble, that we have to fight because the war is already won. This is a misconception based on truth. The war has been won, but Christ never once said that we wouldn’t face hard times. Every time he spoke on this subject he said that we would in fact face hard times. He said that they will be HARD, not easy. These times are going to test our faith, our strength, our patience, our everything. Every part of our body will be tested in theses times.
A person who says that because we have Christ we will never face a hard time must be reading a different bible then I am. Because the jesus in the bible that I’m reading says in john 16:33 “…In this world you will have trouble.”
He tells us that we will face the troubles. We will face the difficulties. But he adds something to it in verse 33, “But take heart! I have overcome the world.” In one verse he gives us a problem that will be presented, troubles, and he gives us the answer to the problem, faith. Why? Because in every problem we face, in every situation that we are in, the only way out of it is to have faith in God to help us along.
Do you know how many times people in the bible were told to “take heart” or to not lose their faith? Collectively, give or take 500 times. There’s most likely more, this is just all I found.
Christ himself told his disciples either directly or indirectly more then 30 times. Now again, probably more, this is just what I found in 3 of the 4 gospels … His disciples, The people that he walked with, the ones he talked with, the ones that he ate with, the ones that he laid his head next to at night when they slept, the guys that he had good late night chit-chat with, the guys who saw him feed over 9,000 people at two different occasions. They saw Him walk on water. They saw one of their own even walk on water because of his faith in Christ. They saw him heal the sick by him laying hands on people, by just saying “you are healed”, by putting mud on a dudes eyes, they even saw a woman be healed just by touching a piece of his jacket. These guys saw every miracle that Christ preformed, even the most important one of them all, conquering death, and he told them 30 plus times to take heart.
Now why did I just go on and talk about them seeing everything He had done? To let you know that we all need to be told to keep faith, no matter what we have seen Him do in our life’s. When Christ died, the apostles didn’t have him there to tell them to take heart anymore, you know who took that job? Each other. The apostles took that job and would go to each other and tell them to take heart. They came together, literately, all came together in the upper room, and would tell each other when times where getting hard there and would say “keep heart! Trust in what He said!” In acts 1 Peter stands up and tells everyone in the room about what just happened and why it was necessary. He told them not to doubt or to worry about Christ being gone. And again in acts 2 when the holy spirt fell down upon those in the room. People started to speak in different languages, in languages that they had never studied, they had never heard before, but they still started to speak in them. And as people said that they were drunk Peter again stood up and proclaimed how important it is to keep our faith in Christ, his spirit, and in his power.
Well the apostles aren’t here anymore. They died a long time ago. If they are gone who’s job is it now to tell us to take heart? Ours. It’s yours, mine, theirs…it is our job to encourage other believers, to come together as one body to tell every part of the body to take heart. In john 17:11 Christ says to the father, “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.” So that we may be one. Just as the apostles came together in the upper room, he wants us to come together. He wants us to be unified, and a unified body builds up every part of the body. If a part of the body is lacking, the rest of the body, because it is unified, will come to the aid of that part that is lacking and will build it up.
Think of it like this, in your own body, if your sick, your body starts to send out this little army to take care of the sickness. You have antibodies that are sent out to go to combat against the illness, the virus, the bug or whatever it is that has somehow entered your body. That is what we should be. When the sickness called doubt or the virus named fear enters into the church body we need to send out an army to attack it. To beat down fear and doubt and to kick them out of the body. If the antibodies in your body decided to not fight against an infection in your body, what would happen? The infection would spread and become so bad that you would end up dead. If nothing is done to take care of the infection your body will die. If the right actions were taken when the infection started the body would of been saved and the infection would be taken care of. In the body of Christ, if we are not unified, and we do not attack doubt and fear we allow the body to be damaged. Our job isn’t damage control, our job is to prevent damage, and we do that by attacking the sickness. We need to be coming together, as one unified body and in one unified faith (that is faith is Jesus Christ and believing all that is in the written word of God), as brothers and sister coming to the aid of brothers and sisters. Seeing where help is needed and being there to help.
That’s what Christ wants. If he didn’t want that then he wouldn’t of said that he wants us to be as unified with each other as he is with the father. Our Christian walk isn’t meant to be walked alone. Christ himself had 12 guys that he walked with. We need to be running with each other in this race, and we need to be there for our brothers and sister who are running along side us. We need to be there for them when they stumble so that we can help them up. We need to be there for them when doubt kicks in and they start to think that they can’t make it so that we can encourage them to continue. And we need to be there for them for them when they are overwhelmed with joy so that we can share it with them.
My prayer for us all is that we would be there for our brothers and sister, that we wouldn’t try to run faster then everyone else and try to get the quicker, but that we would run together, and that when we cross the finish line, we will all celebrate in the glorious kingdom of God TOGETHER!
