There is a difference between the life we imagine in our heads and the one that actually plays out in the day to day.
We have been slowly sedated into an idea of life that is simply a fairy tale.
I don’t write this to say that that life is not beautiful, and that there are not some awesome things to be lived while we are here, but I feel like we need to be honest about what we signed up for.
The Word of God is a mix of suffering and victory.
Jesus was on the cross but it lead to the empty grave. Paul was imprisoned, and yet full of joy. Abraham was without children and still he hoped against hope.
Its not simply victory, and its not just suffering, it is always both! This is a profound lesson we need to cement in our spirits; the idea that even in the blessing we will find struggle, and in the struggle blessing! This kind of thinking leads to contentment.
Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. Philippians 4:11
The word in Greek for content here is autarkas – sufficient, strong enough or possessing enough to need no support; independent of external circumstances; content with one’s lot, with one’s means, though the slenderest.
The Amplified Bible makes this statement.I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency.
This is so amazing! What I hear the Father saying is that in Him we are free from circumstantial living! We are free to be full when according to the world we should be empty!
I know what I signed up for.
When we enter life, we enter a mix of temporal sufferings and eternal glories. When we choose to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, we enter the promise of persecution. When we say yes to the kingdom of God, we say yes to death to self, we say yes to become a servant of all.
It’s all beautiful, it all has a place. In Joy we see one side of the Father, in pain we see another, and we need both of them.
I know what I signed up for; I signed up for Jesus! I’m so in love with Him and so loved by Him!
My prayer is you would see him in everything today! In joy and pain, in the extraordinary and the mundane, He is there, it is necessary, and it is beautiful.
For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!],
Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
I am leaving in July to go to China, and India to bring the gospel to places it has never gone. The Lord has shown me that many will be touched by this trip. I am in need of $12,000 in order to cover the expenses on the trip! Would you consider partnering with me? Just click the support bar on top of the page to give! Thanks and walk in his love and power today!
