Dead Honesty about Life

August 4, 2020

“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart because I have overcome the world.”John 16:33 NLT

Jesus was a straight shooter. He never did the “bait and switch” thing, the flattery to get a person close to Him, the presenting the best and letting the worst come out later. He was 100% transparent, honest, authentic. He was dead honest about living life in our world.

So He says this world is a very broken place, full of broken people and things that are not working as we wish. Here on this planet you will have many trials and sorrows, things done to you accidentally and purposefully. There will be things that wreck your heart and wound your spirit. Your body and mind will be affected. Don’t be thrown when it happens. I am telling you this so that when it does happen—and it most assuredly will—you can have peace.

So, we know this by now, right? We know that Jesus was completely right. We experience the trials and sorrows on a regular basis. Yet He tells us to embrace life. To live the life that He gave us to the fullest. He told us, “My plan, the reason why I came, is to give you life full and overflowing”(John 10:10). How do we do that?

Again, Jesus speaks directly and with great clarity. The only way to embrace life in a broken world is to find peace IN HIM, not in our circumstances. If we wait for “things to straighten out,” for the situation to change, enjoyment in life will always be elusive. Our relationship with Jesus, the God who is always in control, gives us the foundation for peace and joy.

Then He says we can take heart. When Jesus tells us to take heart it means to be encouraged, to have hope, to be bold and confident, to not give up, to be of good cheer, to have courage, and to cheer up. He says we can afford to do that because He has faced everything in the world and overcome it! Whether we take heart or lose heart is simply a choice we make. Jesus uses the phrase as an imperative verb here, which means that taking heart is an action—something He tells us to do. Our lives will follow the choice we make. If we choose to take heart in the midst of our circumstances, that is embracing life, and it is choosing to overcome with Jesus.

• Words from a popular worship song: “Take courage, my heart, be steadfast my soul!” Listen and sing along with Kristene DiMarco and take heart!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJoABwNMzvM