Trouble: Sign Of An Active Soul

For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.
2 Corinthians 1:5

When Christ gives peace, he says, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

He is a peace that conquers and comforts.

The opening words of the second letter to the Corinthians speak of the comfort of Christ. But as John Henry Jowett points out, peace comes to aid us in the struggle, not help us avoid it.

WALK WITH JOHN HENRY JOWETT
“It is possible to evade a multitude of sorrows by the cultivation of an insignificant life.

“Indeed, if a man’s ambition is to avoid the troubles of life, the recipe is simple: Shed your ambitions in every direction, cut the wings of every soaring purpose, and seek a little life with the fewest contacts and relations.

“If you want to get through the world with the smallest trouble, you must reduce yourself to the smallest compass. Tiny souls can dodge through life; bigger souls are blocked on every side.

“As soon as a man begins to enlarge his life, his resistances are multiplied. Let a man remove his petty selfish purposes and enthrone Christ, and his sufferings will be increased on every side.

“So it was with the Savior. His all-absorbing, redemptive purpose was bound to introduce him to endless suffering.”

WALK CLOSER TO GOD
Who is better qualified to work for peace than those who have experienced God’s peace firsthand?

You have been comforted by Christ—not to make you comfortable but to make you a comforter, a dispenser of peace.

But it begins with a life at peace with God—forgiven, cleansed, comforted.

Is that you?

It can be if you make 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 the prayer of your heart … right now.