Christ said to be of good cheer

Do you ever feel like you're running in place and not making a difference in the world at all? Or for every step forward you take, you fall two steps behind?

Every now and then I go through a hands-in-the-air "What does it matter?" phase. I have strong opinions, and I'm rarely reticent to share those opinions. But so what? Everybody has opinions. Why should mine make a difference? What power do I have to change the way people think and behave? Perhaps becoming someone with power would help. A politician? I'd rather eat a bowl of dirt than run for public office.

It's terribly easy to become jaded. The same government that takes more of our money takes more of our liberties. Every day, people torture and murder one another. Every day, women continue to kill their unborn babies. Every day, children are born into homes with no fathers around to love and protect them. Every day, sexual permissiveness and perversion grows. Every day, the deviant becomes the norm.

It is so easy—too easy—not to care and to give up. What do we fallen-but-saved people do day-to-day among these fallen-and-unsaved people in a fallen world?

We remind ourselves we have a task and that He's with us:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Amen.

And that He's already won:

“Do you now believe? Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

We remind ourselves that we can't save people. We are conduits through which God carries out His plan (what a privilege!) and accomplishes His work. Nothing happens that is outside God's knowledge or beyond His control. These simple words describe profound truth. Let it seep into your bones. We might not understand the depth of this truth, but we know the living God reigns, and we are His witnesses.

So be of good cheer, Christians. Yes, even among all the degeneracy. And continue to speak out. In the words of a fellow believer:

"The truth whispered by one is still more beautiful than a lie chanted by the many."