Tribulation

Do you have tribulation in your life?

Definition of 'tribulation'-

trib·u·la·tion-

a cause of great trouble or suffering.

synonyms:        suffering, distress, trouble, misery, wretchedness, unhappiness, sadness, heartache, woe, grief, sorrow, pain, anguish, agony;  difficulty, problem, worry, anxiety, burden, cross to bear, ordeal, trial, adversity, hardship, tragedy, trauma, affliction

Seriously, do you have tribulation in your life? Are you suffering, in distress, troubled, in misery, wretchedness, are you unhappy, sad, full of heartache, woe, grief, sorrow, pain…. Just read the list above. Are you experiencing any tribulation?

If you are- don't be surprised.

Joh 16:33  These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. 

The world offers us tribulation. We are told in the world we SHALL HAVE tribulation.  End of story, we are going to have tribulation in our lives.  To believe that you don't deserve tribulation, that you should be exempt from tribulation is a deception Satan pushes at us. Satan wants us to believe that we aren't to have tribulation in our lives so that we consider our lives messed up and ourselves failures because our lives are so filled with tribulation.  Satan will do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING he can to deceive us and he's done a great job. A lot of people let the tribulation in their lives tear them away from Christ.

Christ told us that we'd have tribulation but He also told us that in HIM we'd have peace. NO WHERE ELSE can we find true peace, NO WHERE. Satan wants us looking all over the place, in fact anywhere but to Christ where peace is found.  Satan will throw in our faces that we don't have peace so we must not have Christ, is he right or wrong? What did our Savior do when He was buried in tribulation? He agonized with the Father in prayer. He wasn't laid back, matter of fact, everything is fine and dandy in that Garden of Gethsemane. 

Luk_22:44  And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Jesus was in AGONY.  Did that mean He'd lost the peace of the Father? That He was no longer trusting God? No, it did not mean those things at all. We can feel the effects of tribulation and still retain the knowledge that there is peace in Jesus Christ our Lord. We can still cling to the promise of His salvation and the hope of life eternally without tribulation. Right now in this world we will have tribulation we can't allow ourselves to believe otherwise. 

Joh 14:27  Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. 

Our hearts, in the deepest part of us we must know that in Christ all our hope rests. In His peace - something the world CANNOT give us we can live. We may be troubled and afraid, but it doesn't have to be a HEART troubling, HEART fear that pushes out the hope of our Savior! We must keep the knowledge of Christ's peace in our hearts. All by His grace!