God repeatedly tells us: \u201cI love you;\u201d \u201cI am with you;\u201d \u201cnothing is impossible for Me;\u201d and \u201cyou do not need to be afraid.\u201d He does not tell us: \u201cLife will be easy;\u201d \u201cyou will always be understood and accepted;\u201d \u201cyou will always be treated fairly;\u201d or \u201cMy kingdom comes without struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n
All we have to do is examine the life of Christ to understand the tensions that exist when deity confronts humanity. Disciples of Jesus have been filled with the Holy Spirit, so conflict is bound to appear as we live in a fallen world. Our challenge is to keep eyes on our Teacher while following the two great commands: \u201cLove God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength;\u201d and \u201clove your neighbor as yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
So why should there be struggle if \u2018love\u2019 is the driving force in our lives? We know there is an enemy who hates\u2026 Satan hates God and he hates people. Immediately after Jesus was baptized, He was led into the wilderness to face the devil. Satan wanted to defeat God\u2019s work from the beginning, but God will not be defeated. Spiritual war existed as Jesus walked the earth and spiritual war takes place today. We should not be surprised when we are resisted or misunderstood or persecuted while living boldly for Christ. Satan hates us\u2026 but God loves us; He is with us; He can do all things; and we do not need to be afraid.<\/p>\n
Brilliantly, our Father in Heaven uses our trials, our struggles, and even our failures to mold us into His image. Even Jesus grew this way: \u201cSon though He was, He learned obedience from what He suffered.\u201d (Hebrews 5:8) Disciples learn to look at hardship from a different perspective. \u201cConsider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.\u201d (James 1:2-3)<\/p>\n
As we encounter trials and as we persevere, God teaches us to live like Christ. Trusting and loving His Father, Jesus resisted the devil, shared the good news of the kingdom, and loved people. \u201cTo this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps.\u201d (I Peter 2:21) \u201cConsider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.\u201d (Hebrews 12:3)<\/p>\n
We can be overcomers because He overcame!<\/p>\n
\u201cI have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.\u201d John 16:33<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
God repeatedly tells us: \u201cI love you;\u201d \u201cI am with you;\u201d \u201cnothing is impossible for Me;\u201d and \u201cyou do not need to be afraid.\u201d He does not tell us: \u201cLife will be easy;\u201d \u201cyou will always be understood and accepted;\u201d \u201cyou will always be treated fairly;\u201d or \u201cMy kingdom comes without struggle.\u201d All we have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-struggle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2796"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2799,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2796\/revisions\/2799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}