God's Glory: Lesson 3 | Day 3

“But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. This will result in your being witnesses to them.”  Luke 21:12-13

Do you like for people to talk bad about you behind your back? Would you ever volunteer to get beat-up? Do you enjoy going through trials, persecution, or suffering? These probably sound like pretty dumb questions to you. Who in their right mind would like these things? Most of us would run in the total opposite direction of all those things.

Read Luke 21:12-13.
None of us really wants to deal with the things we just talked about. And that’s perfectly normal. But these are the types of things that Jesus tells us to expect. Trials and persecution are part of what comes with the territory of following Jesus. While they’re not fun, the cool part about them is that they give us incredible opportunities to point people to Jesus.

Look at verse 13 again. “This will be your opportunity to bear witness.” It’s easier to lash out at those who mistreat you. It’s easier to get frustrated when things don’t go your way. It’s easier to throw your hands up and get mad when you face trials. It’s easy and it’s natural because they’re all fleshly responses.

But, as believers we don’t draw on our own strength. We draw on the strength of Christ, who lives inside of us.
And so when we don’t act like the rest of the world, people take notice and, BOOM! . . . there’s our opportunity to tell people about our God, to tell them that our hope isn’t found in this world.

Some things to think about:

• Why is it so important for our responses to these types of situations to be different from the rest of the world? 

• When you face these types of struggles, how can you fight your natural fleshly response and draw on the strength of Christ in you?