Chrysostom
Good and Faithful Servant
You have heard how they mocked our Lord, stripping Him and watching Him die as if He were the vilest criminal. So do not wonder when your family laughs at you and asks where your God is. They did the same to Christ, yet by faith the saints saw His crucifixion more clearly than those who stood jeering. Abraham, when tested, offered up his only son, counting that God was able to raise him from the dead.
He did not demand to see the promise fulfilled before he endured; he believed that even when God’s own word seemed to war against itself, God remained faithful. Your patient suffering of these taunts is not proof that He has forgotten you. It is the very furnace in which faith is refined. The treasure of your soul is carried in an earthen vessel, battered on every side but never destroyed.
Those who mock you rage like Herod, furious because he could not thwart heaven’s purpose. Their laughter echoes against a wall they cannot see. You are not a sinner in some special way; all have sinned, but you have set your hope in God, and that hope does not disappoint. Keep drawing near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, not leaning on what your eyes behold but on what the Spirit reveals.
Do not envy the ease of the wicked; they purchase a little rest at the cost of unutterable punishment. Your endurance is working out comfort and salvation, and in due time God will make your righteousness shine like the dawn. When He sets all things right, those who scoff will see where your God was: not absent, but carrying you through the storm and bringing you forth as gold from the fire.
He did not demand to see the promise fulfilled before he endured; he believed that even when God’s own word seemed to war against itself, God remained faithful. Your patient suffering of these taunts is not proof that He has forgotten you. It is the very furnace in which faith is refined. The treasure of your soul is carried in an earthen vessel, battered on every side but never destroyed.
Those who mock you rage like Herod, furious because he could not thwart heaven’s purpose. Their laughter echoes against a wall they cannot see. You are not a sinner in some special way; all have sinned, but you have set your hope in God, and that hope does not disappoint. Keep drawing near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, not leaning on what your eyes behold but on what the Spirit reveals.
Do not envy the ease of the wicked; they purchase a little rest at the cost of unutterable punishment. Your endurance is working out comfort and salvation, and in due time God will make your righteousness shine like the dawn. When He sets all things right, those who scoff will see where your God was: not absent, but carrying you through the storm and bringing you forth as gold from the fire.
