Yes, Argue. But, Yes, Pray

The more I ponder the plight of our country the more I'm reminded that public square conversations are needed and defense of the Christian worldview from those who want to attack is necessary. There needs to be healthy arguments given in defense of the Christian position. However, I'm also reminded the only thing that will bring real and lasting change to our country is a revival of the gospel. For that we must pray.

In Colossians 1:3-6 Paul writes to the church there:

³ We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, ⁴ since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, ⁵ because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, ⁶ which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth,

 A few points of observation for us to consider here:

1 . Paul calls the gospel "the word of truth." The gospel is the truth about God, us, the world, and reality. 

2. Paul states to the Colossian believers that the gospel is bearing fruit and increasing in the whole world. The gospel was going forth and bearing fruit. The influence of the gospel was spreading and growing. 

Friends, the God who brought the growth and increase from gospel seed planting is the same God we serve today. He can revive us again. He is the Sovereign Lord of the universe and of the harvest. We must pray for revival to burst forth on our land. Until then, may we be faithful seed planting and soil watering believers, who live with a fervency of prayer for God to cause the word of truth to increase throughout the world.

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The Short Life-Span of Suffering

One day suffering will be swallowed up. It will be engulfed. The things that often torment and haunt us now will eventually be defeated and we will triumph with joy abounding forever. Eternity offers us the hope that our present sufferings are only temporary.

Paul says in Romans 8:18 (ESV) "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us."

These things we face, and everyone faces them, will eventually be history. God has promised victory. One day those in Christ will experience this victory. Dostoevsky, the 19th century Russian novelists, understood this. In his book The Brothers Karamazov he makes this amazing statement:

"I have a childlike conviction that the sufferings will be healed and smoothed over, that the whole offensive comedy of human contradictions will disappear like a pitiful mirage, a vile concoction of man's Euclidean mind, feeble and puny as an atom, and that ultimately, at the world's finale, in the moment of eternal harmony, there will occur and be revealed something so precious that it will suffice for all hearts, to allay all indignation, to redeem all human villainy, all bloodshed; it will suffice not only to make forgiveness possible, but also to justify everything that has happened with men."*

Many are going through different trials and tribulations today. Would you pray for them today and ask the Lord to strengthen and encourage them? Would you also pray for the Lord to bring forth the day in which all things will be restored, and the above description comes to pass? Suffering does have a short life-span. We must remember that. It is partly how we are able to carry on in the midst of it.

How can remembering suffering has a short life-span serve to better endure it?

Related posts: A Prayer for the Overwhelmed

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*Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002), 235-236