John 16:29-33
Troubles in This World
29 Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. 30 Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”
31 “Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. 32 “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.
33 “I 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.”
When I first read the gospels I never read about Jesus' ministry getting easier and having a more relaxed time in His last days on earth....No, in the last week and days of His ministry He was betrayed, He was arrested, His Disciples fled from Him, He was tortured, and then He was was crucified...He suffered more in His latter days...
When we have faith in Jesus and believed we are saved by Him, we might have a tendency to believe that we will not stumble and sin again...We might want to think that our life will be easier...But in this world you will have troubles...Jesus in one of His last teachings to His Disciples told them just that in this world they would have troubles...And in our troubles and Disciple's troubles, we still will continue to sin and need to go back to Him for confession and confess our sins to Him...Life will not become untarnished and a success story, when we believe in Him and become Christians...
Priest and author Brennan Manning wrote, “There is a myth flourishing in the church today that has caused incalculable harm: once converted, fully converted...In other words, once I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, an irreversible, sinless future beckons...Discipleship will be an untarnished success story; life will be an unbroken upward spiral toward holiness.”...