by Scott H. Northrup
Every single one of us will face setbacks in life. Things will not always turn out just as we would wish. To everyone comes opportunities for discouragement, disappointment, and loss of heart.
Trouble comes to every person, and for three main reasons: for doing what is wrong, for doing what is right, and for doing nothing. We can understand how doing bad things can get us into trouble. There is no denying that. But what is sometimes difficult to comprehend is the trouble we can get into for doing the right thing!
No matter how much good we determine to accomplish, we face opposition. The fact is, there is an adversary of good, actual spiritual forces of evil operating behind the scenes in every activity of mankind. These forces are seeking to destroy everything good God is desiring to accomplish in us. It is well said that "no good deed goes unpunished."
No one could have understood this better than Jesus. Though He went about doing good, healing people, ministering mercy and love and truth into the lives of all who sought Him, He was rejected by the religious and political establishment of His day. He was not naive about the way the world operates. For as it is written, "He knew what was in man." Though He was gentle and humble of heart, and "not a dimly burning wick would He extinguish," He was unjustly tried and hung on a Roman cross to die.
Jesus was able to endure this because He kept His eyes on the ultimate triumph of good that was to be accomplished through His suffering and death, the very salvation of the world. He knew His death would not be in vain. By sowing His life as seed into the ground, He understood He would reap the very rebirth of the human race back into the original glory of the image of God.
Paul exhorts us to follow Christ's example, "Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary."
Paul's writing in 2 Corinthians 4 outlines the keys to not losing heart, growing weary, and giving up. The gist of his message is this: If you are losing heart, you are looking at the wrong things. You need to get your eyes off the problems, off the circumstances, off the past, and start focusing on God and what He is doing. Get your eyes on the prize!
Paul reminds us of several things in this chapter. He tells us not to lose heart, because the One who raised Jesus from the dead after His apparent inglorious defeat will raise us up also! There is an eternal weight of glory awaiting us, far beyond all comparison, far beyond what this present world has to offer.
He reminds us that the grace of God is continually spreading to more and more people every day. Did you know that more people came to Christ in the last ten years than in the entire history of the Church? There are more Christians in China than in the U.S. today. Jesus is being glorified all over the globe, and other religions are waning and losing their grip by comparison.
The Word of God says not to lose heart because, though our outward man is decaying, our inward man is being renewed daily. We are given renewed strength for each new day by the Holy Spirit. Just as it seems we will reach the end of our resources, God's resources in us are inexhaustible through the power of the Holy Spirit who abides in us.
Finally, the Word reminds us that things that we now see are temporary and subject to change, while things that are presently unseen are eternal. Get your eyes on these eternal things. Everything you can see is going to burn, is destined for extinction. Your problems are subject to change. Your circumstances are temporary. Only those things that are founded in God are to remain when everything else has been shaken. Your eternal relationship with God is one thing that cannot be shaken. Because you abide in God, you will live forever.
When all hell is breaking loose around you, in your job, in your family, in your marriage, remember this unalterable truth that Isaiah spoke: "the government will be upon His shoulders, and there will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace." As Martin Luther wrote, "A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing. Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills, prevailing...And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us...the body they may kill: God's truth abideth still; His kingdom is forever."
@ copyright 2002 by Scott H. Northrup. All rights reserved.