Quit looking for an easy life!

Matthew 7:13, 14 ESV – Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way I shard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

There is a hopeless future bulging toward you

You won’t find it in Jesus

John 10:10 ESV – I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 15:18 ESV – If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

John 16:33 ESV – In the world you will have tribulation

2 Corinthians 1:5, 8-9 ESV – We share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings. For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.

2 Corinthians 11:23-28 ESV – Far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.

A Better Life

James 1:2 ESV – Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.

A Peaceful Life

John 16:33 ESV – I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

Isaiah 26:3 ESV – You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

A Meaningful Life

Hebrews 11:35-38 NLT – But others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons. Some died by stoning, some were sawed in half, and others were killed with the sword. Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated. They were too good for this world.

Hebrews 12:1-3 ESV – Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.