JOHN 16:33 – “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
THEME OF THE DAY: HE TOLD US IT WOULD BE SO. Today’s scripture is the conclusion of what is known as The Upper Room Discourse Jesus gave His disciples. Some scholars and commentators state this discourse by our Lord covers chapters fourteen through sixteen of John’s gospel. Others would include chapter thirteen.
This portion of scripture reveals the heart of the Lord Jesus like no other. He bears His heart of love for His disciples, and ministers comfort and hope in their time of need. And it was a time of great need. Imagine being one of them. We gave up our lives, even our vocations, to follow Jesus. We met His demands – deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me. There was no turning back, and now the One for whom we gave up our entire lives is leaving us, and He says we cannot go with Him. How would we feel? Like the other disciples – anxious and afraid (John 14); abandoned (John 14); powerless (John 15); and filled with sorrow (John 16). And for every difficult emotion, Jesus gives us assurance, promises, comfort, and instructions to encourage us.
The last instruction He gives is today’s scripture. It is full of hope and strength because of what Jesus promises – His peace, and He also gives a real dose of reality in the world we live. He says, “In the world you will have tribulation.” We may interpret this in one simple statement – Life in this world is hard. And we need His reminder of this often for at least the two reasons as follows.
First, we want a life of ease; a life of comfort, free from intense trials. How may we determine this is our attitude and way of thinking? By the ease we complain when life is hard, and it doesn’t take much to get us complaining so we need a steady dose of Jesus reminding us life is hard.
Another reason we need to remember life is hard and full of tribulation is that it points us to what caused all this in the first place – the fall of our first parents in the Garden of Eden.
“To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return”” (Genesis 3:16-19).
Go back to Genesis often and be reminded why life is hard. It is a garden problem and will not be fixed until the Creator of the garden and Redeemer makes all wrongs right and rids us of what makes life hard – sin.
Life is supposed to be hard. Jesus told us so, but not forever. Remember that today!
PRAYER: Father, forgive me when I complain because life gets hard and painful.
REFLECTION: We should not expect life to be easy. There will be no heaven on earth.