Good week? Bad week?

I hope you’ve had a good week, but, if you haven’t, I particularly want to encourage you today. One of the greatest injustices in the Bible, in my mind, has to be the beheading of John the Baptist. When you read the account in Matthew 14, and see how John was used as a pawn between King Herod’s sister-in-law and the king himself, it makes for upsetting reading! In verse 13, upon hearing the shocking news, ‘Jesus … withdrew … to a solitary place.’

The reality is that we all have traumatic events to face and work through, and, in Christ, we have a saviour who faced his own trials, even before the indescribable torture and subsequent death on the cross. The book of Hebrews tells us that ‘we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses’ (Hebrews 4:15). Prior to that, we are told that Jesus, ‘the author of … salvation [is made] perfect through suffering’. (See Hebrews 2:10.) Interestingly, Jesus responds to the devastating news of John’s demise by going and feeding 5,000 people and then walking on water (Matthew 14:13-36), and His response to His own death was to defeat it through resurrection!

Whatever you and I might face, we have a saviour who responds to devastation with victory, and I believe He would have us do the same! Today you have the victory in Christ; be encouraged to believe it and live in it.