What we need is to be so gripped by Jesus and His grace that we truly forget about ourselves. Why would we want to think about ourselves, the lesser, when we can think about Him, the infinitely greater?
I pray your heart will testify more and more that you are a citizen of another world, of a better country, with a glorious King. And I pray you will joyfully cling to His promises that He will return to restore and remake a ruined Earth with glorious news of heaven.
You are a whole person, and the path to your heart travels through your mind. Truth matters. To touch us at the heart leveland to keep touching us over days, months, years, and decadestruth must work its way into our minds, especially when confronting the universal problem of suffering.
The gospel is attacked on both frontson the one hand, stripped of its intrinsic joy and on the other, stripped of its holy uniqueness and ability to deliver Christian happiness.
If God decided all the suffering of history is worth the price paid, who are we to say otherwise? He knows everything and took upon Himself the lion’s share of human suffering. Hasn’t He earned the right to trust God through trials?
I’ve studied many worldviews, but none comes close to the biblical worldview in accounting for all the facts of our existence—including our longing for happiness.
Witness the profound faith of Nanci Alcorn as she navigated her final years with cancer, viewing her illness as God's servant and finding epic times with God.
We should seek the Lord’s will through the reading and study of His Word, prayer, and the wise counsel of others. I emphasize “wise” to discourage counsel only from those who automatically agree with us and are not committed to speaking God’s truth.
The false idea that prosperity brings contentment is nothing new. Paul warned Timothy and the church at Ephesus about false teachers—first-century equivalents to modern prosperity theology proponents—who were “depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain” (1 Timothy 6:5).
Choosing to rejoice, by rehearsing reasons to be happy and grateful while suffering, affirms trust in God.
