Coping with stress Week 22, 2015

 I believe Christians are in for a time of hardship; persecution if you like. Lately the matter has been turning up repeatedly as one goes to the word. I believe it not just because the scriptures say “Everyone who wants to live a godly life in union with Christ Jesus will be persecuted” 2Tm 3:12(GNB). If I see well enough a phase of national and international hard times await the genuine disciples who would follow Jesus and not deviate to the left or the right. This write-up is not to debate that but to give you tools (a tool specifically) to stand firm throughout. In His race on earth Jesus used this tool Himself, and it is on record that using it through God’s help He victoriously passed through the worst suffering victoriously. If Jesus needed tools to get through inescapable difficulty, hardship and trial you need tools too. Since Jesus used this and succeeded I commend it to you. We must never stop looking to Jesus. He is the leader of our faith, and he is the one who makes our faith complete. He suffered death on a cross. But he accepted the shame of the cross as if it were nothing because of the joy he could see waiting for him. And now he is sitting at the right side of God's throne Heb 12:2(ERV). Look beyond the shame and disgrace your uncompromising stand is giving you. See beyond the pain and anguish you are called to endure: set your eyes beyond what is seen to what is unseen. Paul the apostle used the same tool: This light, temporary nature of our suffering is producing for us an everlasting weight of glory, far beyond any comparison, because we do not look for things that can be seen but for things that cannot be seen. For things that can be seen are temporary, but things that cannot be seen are eternal 2Cor 4:17, 18(ISV).  

Saint of God what God will give you is not worth comparing with whatever grief, deprivation, suffering and pain you have to put up with. Remember this. The time of glory and reward from His hand is by far longer than the time of pain and confusion; by far longer as eternity is longer than the longest lifespan.

What are you seeing beloved? An athlete’s eyes are set to the finish line. In a race Hussein Bolt ran he looked up at the clock and slowed down. It is said he saw he was not about to break the world record then. In endurance what your mind meditates on is critical to the outcome. Critical I say since the word “because” is there: because we do not… So long as the eyes are on the present the afflictions won’t work it out. The working out occurs while, and because, we are looking for eternal things. The Israelites on their wilderness journey went through hardships allowed (even designed) of God. Those whose minds were not looking into the land of promise, who saw only the present sufferings and the “good things they left behind” and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt Act 7:39(KJV)  (Ever heard it said “If I were not a Christian I would have…”) had nothing worked out for them. They went through the hardship and fell in the wilderness. Get set for action.