When I heard this and thought of my nonchristian friends and coworkers, it made me sad. As a Christian, even in the darkest of nights, I can still take comfort in the fact that however bad the circumstances, God is working for my good even through these circumstances. I realized that for someone who is not saved, something bad that happens could just be straight up bad. No guaranteed redemption of ill fortune.
One thought I've had recently is that it would be hard for me to handle life without humor, which alleviates pressure off of life's all-too-serious issues. But life would be incomparably harder without my relationship with God. With God, there's assurance, there's meaning, there's love... there's relationship. But for a person who does not even believe that God exists, there's no one to even yell at except the empty sky.
Sometimes when I sing worship songs, I sing of the cross and salvation and the gospel, and I think to myself that my actual appreciation for these things does not match my enthusiastic (albeit off-key) singing. Why? I consistently value and appreciate my relationship with God, but I do not consistently value the gospel. I realized today that this makes no sense, since it is the gospel, Jesus' death on the cross that allows me to have a relationship with God. The gospel is the mechanism through which we were brought from estrangement from God to fellowship with God, and for that we appreciate it.
This renewed my burden to share the gospel: that those who do not know God can come to know Him, through Jesus' death on the cross.
2 comments:
Yeah, I remember coming across a similar passage in a John Piper book and thinking about the sobering implications of that, but there's hope in the fact that every seemingly "straight up bad" situation could also be an opportunity for Christ to make His appeal to an nonbeliever. Thanks for sharing!
hmm, I have no idea. I'll try find out what it is.
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