The Gospel is good news. But what is so
good about it? It is so much easier to place bumper sticker answers on one’s
car than it is to bump up against these questions.
Jesus will only connect in an age when he
remains radically different in our daily lives, breaking us out of our
complacency, comfort, and self-imposed “normalcy.” When we truly see Him as the
way, the truth and the life…
Fear and faith cannot occupy the same space in our hearts. For in
Christ we are embraced by the perfection of love and perfect love casts out
fear. Christ came to be our peace, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I
give to you…Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (Jn 14.27).
Crazy to think about it, but just hours before Jesus was crucified he
was concerned for the peace and the joy and the faith of his followers. Think
of it. He is about to be tortured to death with one of the most horrific means
of torture ever devised, and His burden was to solidify in the souls of His
followers peace and joy and faith.
Jesus fought hard against the “false teachings” of the day so that
those who would place their faith in Him, might experience the everlasting joy
of heaven. Jesus suffered on behalf of those who place their belief in who He
is—He sacrificed His life so that we who believe in Him might have the beauty,
the peace, the truth of eternal life.
There on the cross Jesus says to humanity, “I want you to have peace. I
want you to be deeply joyful. I want you to believe in what I say and what I do
— to have unshakable faith. I want you to have the kind of peace that I give,
not the world. The kind of joy that I give, not the world. The kind of faith, I
give, not the world. I want you to have the truth of love and the truth of
faith—I want you to have Me.”
Let us this day stop trying to control the storms and instead, by the
power of the Holy Spirit, step into the calming power of the Savior. Let us
this day place all our care upon Jesus, “for He cares for us” (1 Peter 5.7).
Let us this day ask the Spirit to increase our faith by taking us deeper into
the unexpected ways of Jesus.
