Cheer UP

John 16.31-33

³¹Jesus replied:

   Do you really believe me? ³²The time will come and is already here when all of you will be scattered. Each of you will go back home and leave me by myself. But the Father will be with me, and I won't be alone. ³³I have told you this, so that you might have peace in your hearts because of me. While you are in the world, you will have to suffer. But cheer up! I have defeated the world.

This passage was looked at in a men’s Bible Study a couple of nights ago.  Jesus’ words pierced through the ages from the setting in the upper room into the reality that we face when we wake up and turn on the news.  Since the time of his walking the earth, the earth has known trouble, followers of His have known what it is to suffer, they have taken up the calling to take on the suffering of the world, so that His victory, His healing can not only be talked about in past tense, but known now and into the future.  Though there is suffering, Jesus reminds us that the Father is with us, we are never alone, and He has defeated the world (John is talking of the world as the principles that are aligned against life, against Jesus – these principalities in other places we call death, Satan; the world as a created being is something God is at work redeeming.).
Today, as you follow Jesus and willingly take on some of the suffering of the world, do it in good cheer, for this suffering has met its match in the cross of Christ and all who will follow Him carrying a cross.  The suffering is met by a Father who is ever present, who calls things to life that are dead, who creates out of nothing, who transforms sorrow into gladness.  Be of Good Cheer as you take on some of the world’s suffering, for working in you is the Hope of Glory and the power of Christ Jesus, radiating His relationship and creation healing work through your kind words, your strong arms, your gentle response, your listening ear, your heart of love, your cheer in the midst of a troubled world.  Be of Good Cheer as you live and move in the Gospel, as it flows through you to troubled souls.  Be of Good Cheer.