Luke 21:
NIV:
12 “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. 13 And so you will bear testimony to me. 14 But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. 15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 Everyone will hate you because of me. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 Stand firm, and you will win life.
We're having a pretty tough last 2 weeks. And not only us, but those around us. Your burdens are also our burdens. Almost unbearably so, but each morning, in our devotional time, God seems to be giving us what we need to make it through that day without cracking. This is what I got today... and it is very timely.
There are 3 points I want to make from this.
1 - I have never believed we've been promised safety. Christ is talking to His disciples here and He says 'some of you are going to die'. And then later says 'NOT a hair on your head will perish'. It seems contradictory unless you'll looking at the world with eyes that see heaven beyond death. DIE = end of life on earth PERISH = no heaven. That's how I'm reading it. Even though this is a promise to His disciples, the distinction seems to be made about how any of us may be persecuted if we stand for Christ on this earth. So when the bad things come... we do what?
2 - Witness. Our lives through persecution are to be a witness. (v13). No one writes inspirational books about paraplegics with bad attitudes. There is no movie made of a girl who had her arm bitten off by a shark, then became a bitter, angry, quitter. To have a good witness, we have to bear bad stuff...well. It doesn't mean faking our emotions and putting on a wax smile, it actually means being able to get through BAD times and be able to say through it, 'God is Good! I trust Him.' Each person has to find their own way to do that without letting the Bad Stuff destroy their faith. In the end, our response, our attitude is the only thing we have any control over, because when the Bad Stuff happens, you have no control anywhere else.
3 - Endure. I love the NET version of verse 19 "By your endurance you will gain your lives' The message says, "by your patience" the NIV says 'stand firm'. This particular word is a bit hard to distinguish in the greek, but the idea seems to be..... ENDURING is measured by the retention of your faith through the trials. Keep the Faith. I really like this because, without faith it is impossible to please God. So when the Bad Stuff happens, whatever it is, we should take every measure we can to endure, by keeping our faith in God, in Christ, in His ability to save our souls.... so that when it's over, we had a good witness, and we endured it for a reason.
I absolutely LOVE that Christ knew we would be facing difficulty, and He poised my devotional time so that I got to read that Scripture today. This has been happening regularly all week long. My Bible is my protein bar, it helps me endure. I wonder if I should start calling my devotional times 'carbo loading'. (-;
Almost the moment we asked for prayer coverage from you all, our burdens became bearable, and our perspective shifted into battle mode. My family is in a fight. When it's fightin times, you use fightin words.
We are stubborn, and we've dug in. We've decided not to be conquered. So we are fighting each day not only to have good attitudes and glorify God during this, but also, that our ministry, the ones that the enemy seems so intent on distracting us from... becomes our main focus. So on the days when I have no energy to turn out chapters of the Bible into wav files.... I work extra hard and power through and get it done.
Every day this week I've been able to go home, completely exhausted but able to say 'Today I finished another chapter!'
My daughter is walking around the house singing 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.' I'm hoping we are incredibly frustrating to the enemy.
