March 4, 2019
No Wonder You Have So Few
And God will use this persecution
to show his justice and to make you worthy of his Kingdom, for which you are
suffering.
2 Thessalonians 1:5
As we journey through life with
Christ, seeking the life in Christ as our way of life, God will bless us with
our personal karios moments. In these moments, the love of God will be very
real to us, and God will reveal His truth to us in ways we hadn’t seen or
understood before. These are mountain-top experiences. However, most of our
journey with Christ will be spent along the plains and valleys of life. There
will also be times when we feel as though we are in a pit, such as the one
Jesus was thrown into the night he was betrayed and arrested. (See Psalm
88:1-6)
Jesus promised his followers that
we would encounter grief, injury, persecution, and betrayal, just as he did.
For all who take up their cross to follow Jesus will come days when we are too
tired, too weary, too confused, and too lonely to pray. In such extremity, we
may well feel as though we are beyond being comforted by scripture, prayer or
devotional practices. Our hearts will be tempted to cry out the words
attributed to Teresa of Avila, “Lord, if this is the way you treat your
friends, it is no wonder you have so few.”
Even so, when we find our faith
lagging, Jesus’ faith in us and in his coming Kingdom is not! While we will
most certainly experience days when we feel our flame has been extinguished,
fear not; Jesus will not quench a smoldering wick. While we will most certainly
experience days when we feel we have been bruised and battered and are no
longer useful, fear not; Jesus will not break a bruised reed. (Matthew 12:20)
My Takeaway: I suspect Teresa uttered her now famous words with
just a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. Even though she had fallen
(literally off of her horse), she knew she was for evermore Jesus’ friend. So
are you, so am I.
Sē’lah
Alex
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(Selah is a word that appears in the
Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my
correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about
these things.)
These
meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his
way of life. The meditations are
published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/
and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may
subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by
subscription.
Publications by Alex M. Knight:
·
Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New
Testament and Psalms has been
published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.
·
The second
edition of First Think – Then Pray
is available on Amazon Kindle.
·
Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus
Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.
Unless
otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New Living
Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House
Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream,
Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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