Our plans for Thanksgiving fell through. We had planned to go to my parents’ house tomorrow (Saturday). So, yesterday (Thanksgiving), we took one of our neighbors to a Chinese Buffet, walked around a grocery store, and had a good time discussing Jesus and our favorite music. But then, we got the message: Dad is sick, and so we won’t be able to gather tomorrow for our family turkey day. So today, we packed the boys in the car, met my mom halfway, and got the food that couldn’t wait until Christmas. We’re going to have a “just the six of us” dinner, as prepared by my wife (which will be amazing, I know!). While there is disappointment, sure, God knows what he’s doing. I got to know my neighbor better. We got to focus on God’s perfect grace, we all prayed for my mother and father together, and we still get to appreciate all of God’s goodness.
Loved ones, that is life: ups, downs, joys, disappointments; because the world is marred by sin, we’re bound to experience it all, at some point, or, seemingly, sometimes all at once! The key to contentment through trials, tribulations and triumphs is to focus on the perfect Grace of God. When we consider that God, who would not even spare His own Son to reconcile us to Himself, loves us with such a good and complete love, even the storms are tolerable: though we feel as if we were deserving of death, He helps us see Himself more clearly! So, in every and any circumstance, focus on God’s great grace. Consider what Jesus did for us, and how He lived, died and rose again, and live a life in gratitude of that perfect Grace, Forgiveness and Reconciliation He brings!
2 Corinthians 1:3-11
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.
Philippians 2:1-18
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.
Comentários