“But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.” – Acts 3:18

There is profound meaning, power, and comfort in this reality that Jesus the Christ suffered. Though He was fully God, He took on a human body and human nature. As both God and man, He suffered physically and spiritually as He hung on the cross to atone for our sins. He bore our guilt, our shame, and God’s wrath. And He died in physical agony after betrayal, humiliation, injustice, and torture.

We have a Savior Who knows exactly what it means to suffer, to be in agony, to be abandoned, and to experience God’s wrath. When we put our faith in Christ, we are joined with Him, filled with His Spirit, and assured of His continuous presence with us in good times and bad.

When we suffer physically, spiritually, emotionally, whether from disease, disability, deprivation, persecution, abuse, abandonment, or injustice we are accompanied, comforted, transformed, and strengthened in our pain by our Savior who completely understands. As Christians, we’re never alone in suffering – Christ is always with us (even when our feelings lie and claim He’s far away) and He understands.

He hears our cries and our prayers and He’s right there with us and in us. If we lean on Him, He will carry us through every season of suffering, no matter how long or intense, for He is the Christ Who suffered!

“A mocker seeks wisdom and doesn’t find it,
but knowledge comes easily to the perceptive.”
– Proverbs 14:6

We live in the Golden Age of Mockery. We’ve been conditioned to mock others for years by our entertainment, politicians, and media. Social media makes it incredibly quick, easy, and painless to like, share, tweet, comment, post, and repost material that mocks rather than seeking to understand, that drips with sarcasm rather than reflecting a genuine desire to be understood, and that dismisses serious issues through the “witty” application of the trivial and the distracting.

Hopefully you’ve noticed that we live in serious times and face serious issues! This isn’t the time for the people of God to rely on mockery to blind and numb themselves from truly understanding and responding to the grave challenges of this world with Christlike love, wisdom, and truth. Christ did not mock people even when He confronted and corrected their errors and sinfulness. Christ certainly never mocked the weak and the vulnerable – His sharpest words were always reserved for those in power who used that to ignore or distort the revealed will of God.

Take time to review your casual conversations with family, friends, and colleagues; review everything you’ve put out on social media; examine your own thoughts about what’s going on right now. Regardless of what position you take on the grave challenges of race, justice, law enforcement practices, public health, economics, government policy, and more, do your thoughts and words reflect a genuine desire to perceive and understand all sides of the issue and advance the conversation? Or do they simply reflect a reliance on mockery to avoid understanding?

“I will praise the name of God with a song;
I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
This will please the Lord more than an ox
or a bull with horns and hoofs.”
– Psalm 69:30-31

At a time when the “usual” means of worshiping God aren’t available or look very different, it’s helpful to remember that our heart of worship is far more important than our rituals of worship. God is pleased when we worship Him in Spirit and in truth wherever that occurs and however that looks.

God cares that we praise Him and give thanks for all of the blessings we enjoy, most particularly our salvation in, and union with, Jesus Christ, His Son. Our heart condition is far more important to the Lord than our ability to worship in the ways we’ve “always done it”.

This is both a comfort and a challenge. The comfort is obvious. Though we may feel a bit guilty or anxious about the changes we continue to endure as we worship and stressed about the decision each person must make about when is best to resume gathering for worship, we are comforted to know that our heart of worship is what pleases God.

However, the challenge is very real too, for this truth requires us to train and discipline our hearts to genuinely sing and praise the Lord even in these evil and unsettled times. Though we may be in shock, angry, or discouraged by all that we see happening around us, we can’t simply retreat into religious ritual – instead, we must consciously bring our heart to truly worship God, in public and in private, even amidst our tears, frustration, and anger.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” – Acts 1:8

Christian, wherever you go, near or far, you have a job to do: be a witness for Jesus Christ. It’s a deceptively simple task: speak the truth of what you know from Scripture and have seen in your own life. A witness tells facts without speculation, truth without opinion or preference. A witness stays focused on his or her responsibility.

This, of course, is where the challenge comes in. To be a faithful witness, we need to know the truth we’re speaking about – so we’re called to a lifetime of studying God’s Word, so that we may continually grow as witnesses. In an unreflective age, we’re called to reflect on what we’ve seen of God’s work in our lives so that we can share our eyewitness testimony. To be a faithful witness we must be willing to table whatever we want to talk about so we can talk about what Jesus asked us to talk about.

It’s increasingly hard to be a witness in our world. The noise level and hostility are increasing and it seems nobody “wants” to hear what we have to say. This is good, because it reminds us that we aren’t witnesses by our own strength, charming personality, wit, or wisdom. Our power to witness impactfully comes only from the Holy Spirit.

While there are things we should do to be more faithful witnesses (practice, prepare, read, and pray among them), it’s ultimately God’s Spirit Who empowers us, and we must learn to let Him, because this broken world needs to hear our testimony of the Living Christ!

“Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.”
– Psalm 69:1-2

It kind of feels like that right now doesn’t? COVID-19. Lockdowns. Widespread unemployment. The bitter fruit of years of looking the other way in the face of aggressive, escalating, and excessive use of force by some in law enforcement. The poison of centuries of systemic racism becoming more visible. Vitriolic discourse and hateful divisions that increasingly undermine “civil” society throughout the world.

Save us, O God! There are no easy answers for the problems facing this fallen world, and we as Christians must stop pretending there are. We must realize and admit that we don’t have the answers, but that we know the One who does!

Then we need to actually represent Him. If you claim Christ as your Lord, then the Bible says you’re an ambassador for Him and that responsibility transcends every other loyalty in your life. You represent Jesus on this earth. First and foremost represent Jesus every minute of every day, not your party, not your politics, not your preferences. Represent Him. Speak and act for Him.

Speak and act for justice, mercy, kindness, gentleness, love, and humility. Love, care for, and defend the most vulnerable in society. Love your neighbors of every race, religion, and ethnicity. Cry out to God and pray for Him to resolve these problems that are tougher than we can resolve, then continue to speak and act for Him.