Jesus Wins!

2 Thessalonians Living Bible
1-3 & 7-8 And now, what about the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to meet him? Please don’t be upset and excited, dear brothers, by the rumor that this day of the Lord has already begun. If you hear of people having visions and special messages from God about this, or letters that are supposed to have come from me, don’t believe them. 3 Don’t be carried away and deceived regardless of what they say…7 As for the work this man of rebellion and hell will do when he comes, it is already going on, but he himself will not come until the one who is holding him back steps out of the way. 8 Then this wicked one will appear, whom the Lord Jesus will burn up with the breath of his mouth and destroy by his presence when he returns

Thoughts:
Two topics seem to be a big part of the community of faith today; Jesus’ return and the miserable state of the world.  Both are very real.  The fact is, even in our community of faith, we are caught in between the hope of Jesus’ return, that we don’t know much about, and  all the well-documented evil in our world we hear so much about.  It’s hard to know how to reconcile all that.  The “man of rebellion and hell” speaks loudly with many borrowed voices that come at us daily.   They question the truth we know about the Lord, but can’t yet see.  Those voices hope to leave us with impotent despair and to make what is unseen seem impossible to the world…and even to us. Those voices swear that our only hope is to be prepared for the worst with worry, despair and even guns and violence if need be.  Don’t listen!

Jesus is the reconciler of life with a different voice and a true hope for living our life of faith right in the midst of a world that needs a makeover.   You win and Jesus wins!   John 16:33 “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.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“I discovered later, and I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By
“this-worldliness” I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith.”