Greetings in The Name of Jesus Christ. This letter is intended to work up faith in you – so that what has been inactive would be activated.
Moreover, whatever that has been active in you would continue bearing fruit in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Since we are told to lift up those who are down, and encourage them, I find it a spiritual responsibility on my side to lend a helping hand so that I would as well be a participant in the building of this spiritual house of our Lord Jesus Christ – His Church.
Dear sister and brother, I know that there have been tumults on your spiritual journey as you seek to attain perfection in Christ Jesus. The same scenario is what we are also going through. Indeed, that is exactly what our Lord Jesus Himself went through when He was here on earth. So, whatever you are going through isn’t new to Christian faithfuls; it has been there for thousands of years past. As captured in the book of Acts of the Apostles 14:22 that, “Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter the Kingdom of God.”
In the above quoted biblical text, Luke, the writer of Acts of the Apostles, makes us to ready ourselves for anything for us to eventually attain our main hope: entering the everlasting salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For that reason alone, dear sister and brother, we need to equip ourselves well in the anticipation of both good and sad stories, knowing so well that the trial of our faith brings forth a sweet smelling aroma unto the Lord God our eternal Father.
Dear brother and sister, it is also good that we look at the book of Mark 10:29-30. It reads as follows, “29. And Jesus answered and said, verily I say unto you, there is no man that has left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my sake and the gospel’s, 30. But he shall receive a hundred fold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life,” Jesus Christ is promising us a lot of things that will come our way.
These all things that will come our way are things that we had earlier rejected, for the sake of His Kingdom. In other words, brothers and sisters, there is no loss in accepting Jesus Christ. He explicitly tells us how things are (and would be like) so that we may take heart.
Dear brother and sister, it’s also important to know that there is a package that comes with all these things that our Lord is promising us. Our Lord is alive to the fact that there would be persecutions – the same things that are currently at the heart of your walk with Him. Persecutions are part and parcel of Christian faith. No Christianity is complete without persecutions. Indeed, I would be tempted to emphatically say that any Christian who doesn’t go through persecutions in his or her life, is not on the right track; there is no salvation in such a brother or sister.
So, brother and sister in Christ, whenever you see yourself at the thick of things, when you are in Christ Jesus, know for sure that that is the very same way that Jesus passed through as He was still here on earth, evangelizing. It has never been something new in Christian faith.
Finally, brother and sister, even as you continue in this walk of faith, remember to be a blessing to other brothers and sisters, with whom we share the same faith. Do the work of encouragement. Many souls out there are dejected because of temptations – and if you do not encourage them, they might just lose hope, thinking that something strange is happening to them – then eventually go back to worldliness.
May our Lord Jesus Christ enrich you even as you continue holding on to the faith. Amen.
