Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
God will take care of you, even in the dark times!
Do you desire to live godly in Christ Jesus? Then you "will be persecuted." Paul's own experience showed the truth of this. He walked so close to the Lord and was overflowing with faith. And yet he said that his "teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, and perseverance" (that is, his Christ-likeness) were accompanied by "persecutions and sufferings."
Does godliness excuse you from the difficulties of life? No! It may even bring challenges that you wouldn't have had otherwise! But in this passage, the Lord reminds us why it's still good to pursue the godly life—"out of them all the Lord rescued me!"
Here's the vast difference between a godly person and a worldly person. A worldly person just tries to "make it through" dark times. But a godly person trusts and finds God at work in and through all things.
Corrie Ten Boom, who suffered so much for God, once said, "Perhaps only when human effort had done its best and failed, would God's power alone be free to work."
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