Take Heart

Jesus didn’t need to remind His disciples that trouble was coming. They had already experienced plenty of it—rejection, opposition, persecution. They had been shouted at, spat on, and chased out of towns for following Him.

Yet, on the night before His crucifixion, Jesus still told them: Trouble is coming. Not just tomorrow, but in all the days ahead.

He wanted them to be prepared. He wants us to be prepared.

But look closer at what else He said: “Take heart.”

Why? Because peace is possible.

The gospel of John is full of Jesus’s most intimate, hope-filled words. He speaks of the Spirit’s presence, of His love for us, of His prayer on our behalf. There is peace to be found in what He says.

But even more than that—there is peace to be found in Him.

Jesus didn’t speak these words with hesitation. He knew what Friday would bring. He knew the weight of the cross. But He also knew that Sunday was coming. That death would not hold Him. That His victory was sure.

He has ...

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, Nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, And scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof ...