Who is it thinks life is supposed to be easy, or even smooth, or maybe happy? There are just too many parameters to expect any of these outcomes. In any life happiness is possible but peace and joy should be core qualities for followers of Jesus.
Jesus is the joy giver. Our life may be hard or even troubled, but the Love of Jesus is the substance of the joy He supplies and we receive that love through our relationship with Him. Joy and Peace combine to create an attitude of commitment in our lives.
Paul wrote to the church at Philippi that “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” Philippians 4:11. He had received a gift from the Philippians but was in Rome in prison at the time. This is the extent to which our earth bound lives can be affected by the presence of our Master.
If we have pain Jesus had it before us, and worse. Where there is anxiety He experienced that too. Look to the prayer time in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He sweated blood. It may seem that our present circumstance is unique that no-one else is in that situation but I think that if we look hard enough through the four Gospels we will be able to find an event that He went through just like it. In His obedience to Father He even experienced the separation from God that our sin caused.
It is not the circumstance that we find ourselves in but the way in which we live that life which is significant. If our life is hard and we refuse to accept where we find ourselves then our friends and neighbours will see our testimony as false. After all didn’t our Saviour promise us “Life abundantly”? I am not saying that we should put on a mask of whatever but we should be able to accept the hand that has been dealt us and live as people who had been supplied their daily need.
The witness of the Spirit within can draw people to Jesus or we can hamper that witness by the attitude we take. This is not just in terms of our own condition but also in the way that we treat others.
This is just as relevant for those who have been amply supplied as well, possibly more so for they have the responsibility to live in a state of wisdom; using the money as unto God. They also can take an attitude which can also hamper their testimony simply by enjoying their wealth unthinkingly and too much.
Lord Jesus never promised us a rose garden or even a yellow brick road. Instead He told us flat that “I am on my way to you. But I say these things while I am still in the world, so that my followers will have the same complete joy that I do. 14I have told them your message. But the people of this world hate them, because they don't belong to this world, just as I don't. John 17:13. This is the promise of how we will be treated by those who we are to reach out to, and we are to do that as He did “in love”.
The final word on this topic should I believe go to Paul of Tarsus who wrote these words in Chapter 13:13 of his first letter to the Corinthians. It says all that I have written and much better more concisely.
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
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