This is an application lesson based on the devotional Seeking God: How to Receive God’s Best for Your Life. Please read it first, then jump back here to read the lesson and journaling prompt.
“Jesus Loves Me” was the first hymn we learned as children. If you came to the Lord as an adult, “Amazing Grace” may have been your inaugural hymn into faith.
Both tunes speak of God’s tender love and fathomless mercy for us. We revel in the warm blanket of fellowship and wrap ourselves in His grace and protection. Like a child looking to her mother, we expect our relationship with God to provide us with protection, provision, and a perfect plan for our lives.
But is that what He promised? Consider these verses:
- “For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake…” Philippians 1:29 NKJV
- In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ… 1 Peter 1:6-7 NKJV
- “If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” 1 Peter 4:14a NKJV
- Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Matthew 7:14 NKJV
- If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 16:24-25 NKJV
- But whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. Matthew 20:26 NKJV
- Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. Matthew 24:9 NKJV
Powerful words: servant, tribulation, kill(!),narrow, difficult, grieved, tested, reproached.
These verses speak to the cost of discipleship and the price of passage through a fallen world.
God promised us not a smooth ride but a steady Guide.
God courts our hearts with rewards far greater than an easy life. He yanks us from the jaws of hell and transfers us into the kingdom of His Son.
This life is the road under our feet – heaven is our destination. Waiting at the end is Jesus Himself.
Journaling Prompt: What did you expect following Jesus would be like? Think back: where did those beliefs come from?
