“And everything I’ve taught you is so that the peace which is in me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me. For in this unbelieving world you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous, for I have conquered the world!”
(John 16:33 TPT)
Famous verse… phenomenal verse… and maybe most ignored verse in the Bible?
Why did Jesus need to spend a few years with a small group of disciples? Teaching them day by day with the things and situations around them? I mean, He is God, He was the power through which His Father created the world?!
He could just zoom down from heaven and set the world straight with a big highlighter and a sharpie and go through the Torah, highlighting focus points and scrapping misunderstood passages.
Done.
But instead He made it personal. Relationship not religion. Understanding instead of rules. Faith and trust instead of blind blundering in a dessert, hoping to stumble across a stream.
When the disciples finally understood who Jesus was, He was free to complete the work for which He came.
“ …you will experience trouble and sorrows…”
There is no question. The world we live in is a broken world. We will not understand how lies can be told as truth and blatant disregard for life will be acceptable in the name of greed. Power and money are the shining, guiding pillars of the world. Frustrating to the core until you understand that it is the nature of the evil rulers of this world and will not and cannot change at this time. A snake is a snake and a Scorpion can only be trusted to be a scorpion.
But Jesus says: All this time I spent with you, is so that you do not chase.
That you will not be frustrated…
Have peace, in Me.
Rest… in Me.
And have confidence because of Me.
And then Jesus speaks a truth that is so easy to overlook: “for I have conquered the world!”
Jesus declares that He stands outside space and time. He has already done what is to happen only in our future. We are still experiencing what God has already completed perfectly!
What a concept to blow the minds of the disciples?!
Yet we experience a version of it almost every day. Binge watch any Netflix series lately? Episode two, the hero is in an inescapable situation! But we know He survives! How? Well, we will find out how in a minute or three, but we know it is going to happen, seeing that there are 9 more episodes coming and he plays in all of them!
In the same way, God gave us the tools to overcome stress and fear and be Courageous: Stay true to God’s Calling and focus on Him.
How?
By overcoming dispair with Joy. How? With gratitude of course. Thanking God for the things He has already done (and will still do!). Gratitude turns to praise, and praise turns to worship and worship brings Peace. A Peace that surpasses All Understanding!
That is our secret weapon, and what Jesus spent years instilling into His disciples
“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.”
(Psalms 150:6 NIV)
Our friends teach this to us every day. They do these gruelling races. They know there will be hunger, rain, cramping muscles and really real suffering. They are not surprised when it comes. They trained for when it comes, not if it comes. But their eyes look forward, and their hearts are focused on the finish line…
We will do well to learn from their great example!
