Devotional - 99-08-30 - Take Another Stab At It

A note of sorrow mixed with joy for all of you who are interested in, involved in, and pray for world missions. Harvie Conn went home to be with Christ on Saturday, August 28 in the evening after a long illness. Those devoted to the missions movement will remember Harvie as a long time Professor of Missions and the man who the Lord used to initiate contextual theology, which has been prominent in missions movement thought ever since.

2 Timothy 3:12 And indeed, all those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

CNN reports that Joey Beahm, fed up with getting stabbed in the back, went to a tattoo parlor in Newark, New Jersey to turn his frustration into skin art. He paid $100 to get a tattoo of a knife going into his back with the words, "Why not, everyone else does." Beahm's paranoia proved to be well founded. His tattoo provided the world with another way to attack him, as "else" was misspelled, "elese."

Do you ever feel like the world is against you? Do you ever think that because of your faith in Christ, things are a little tougher for you? Do you ever feel persecuted? If you can answer yes to any of these questions, I would be willing to guess that you would also say that your faith in, trust in and reliance upon Christ are stronger because of such struggles.

There is one thing that is true about the saints in this world. It is sometimes hard to remember, but it is nevertheless true, this world is not our home. Ephesians 2:19, tells us, "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household." We are fellow citizens with the saints and the principal home of the saints is with God in heaven.

Earth is not our home. "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself." Philippians 3:20, 21

It is good to remember these truths. For many of us life is not easy. The struggles of life bear down upon us. There is no way for me to know the individual struggles that each of you have, but I know my own struggles. I know that reminding myself that I have a future hope, that the love of God is real now and promised to me for the future--forever, and that the kindness of Christ is not only yes today, but promised to me through eternity, gives me encouragement now and the strength to plod through each day with a smile. My prayer is that, being reminded of your hope in Christ, in the midst of the struggles of this life, will give you peace and joy today.

"How sweet will it be for the saints to look back and see how God carried them along through the wilderness, through all the storms of this world, and all its dangers, and temptations, and enemies, after they have come to their resting-place; and how sweet will it be for them to converse together of these things, and what ardent praises will it occasion!" --Jonathan Edwards

Soli Deo Gloria,
T-

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