Are You Happy?

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary

Short Summary
The speaker reflects on personal experiences of suffering and the importance of community support, particularly during difficult times, such as his recent cancer treatment. He emphasizes the concept of “makarios,” which encompasses being blessed, happy, and fortunate in one’s relationship with God, and suggests that true happiness comes from future blessings and spiritual well-being rather than immediate circumstances. The discourse highlights the significance of ecclesial bonds and mutual support among brethren, encouraging attendees to find comfort and joy even amidst trials.

Long Summary
### Detailed Summary of Discourse

Introduction and Context:
– The speaker, after expressing gratitude for prayers from Brother Michael and Brother Randy, reflects on the ease of a specific question posed during the convention.
– He shares personal struggles, having recently undergone radiation treatment for cancer in his right eye, emphasizing the importance of faith and support in attending the convention despite health challenges.

Convention and Community:
– The speaker recalls a photograph from the last general convention before the pandemic, asking attendees about their happiness, linking this to the upcoming convention in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
– He reflects on the importance of community and ecclesial support, sharing experiences from his family and local ecclesia.

Personal Trials and Faith:
– The speaker discusses various trials faced by his family in recent years and how these struggles prompted a reassessment of their consecration vows and relationship with God.
– Key reflections include:
– The relationship with God initiated by His grace.
– God’s constant presence as a source of strength.
– The inevitability of worldly troubles despite being Christians.
– The role of suffering in spiritual development.
– The tools provided by God for rejoicing in trials, both through Him and the support of the brethren.

Biblical Insights:
– The speaker mentions a previous assignment on Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” emphasizing the need for deeper understanding of biblical terms.
– He introduces the concept of “Makarios,” a Greek word translated as blessed or happy, which conveys a state of spiritual well-being and the joy that stems from a relationship with God.

Understanding Happiness and Blessing:
– The speaker presents insights on the Beatitudes from Matthew 5:1-12, noting how Jesus pronounced blessings on various groups, emphasizing future promises rather than present happiness.
– He contrasts the meanings of “blessed,” “happy,” and “fortunate,” underscoring that true happiness comes from God, even amidst trials.

Personal Anecdotes:
– The speaker shares stories of his ecclesia’s evolution, highlighting members who have faced challenges, including those who have lost loved ones and the resulting isolation of classes.
– He recalls the transition of his local class to online formats due to dwindling numbers, illustrating resilience and community spirit.

Examples of Joy in Suffering:
– The speaker reflects on two sisters from his class who exemplified joy despite suffering: Sister Joanna Christensen, who accepted her cancer diagnosis with grace, and his mother, who struggled with the concept of joy in trials but ultimately found peace through faith.

Scriptural References:
– The discourse includes several scripture references that illustrate the themes discussed:
1 Peter 5:10: Suffering leads to spiritual growth.
Ephesians 2:8: Salvation as a gift from God.
James 1:12: The blessing of perseverance under trial.
2 Corinthians 13:4: God comforts us so we can comfort others.

Concluding Thoughts:
– The speaker encourages the audience to embrace their relationship with God, recognizing that happiness and blessing are rooted in divine grace.
– He emphasizes that despite life’s challenges, there is a profound sense of joy and peace available through faith.
– The closing question, “Are you happy?” invites reflection on individual spiritual states, affirming that true happiness is found in God and the community of believers.

### Key Themes and Keywords:
– Faith, Community, Happiness, Suffering, Spiritual Growth, Blessings, Makarios, Trials, Ecclesial Support, Scriptures, Resilience, Love, Divine Grace.

Transcript

Well, thank you, Brother Michael, and thank you, Brother Randy, for the prayer. Well, that was the easiest question of the weekend, I think, probably looking around the room. But there’s some more depth to it that we would like to look into it tonight. That makes it an even more important question. As you look on the screen, you might recognize the last general convention before the pandemic.

Well, while we’re working on that, I want to give a little disclaimer. Most of you know, but some of you don’t know that I just went through radiation treatment for cancer in my right eye, and the treatment was finished on Monday, and we got on a plane on Tuesday, and we’ve been praying that we could. We could get down here to this convention.

And I felt all along that we could and that it was a wise decision until about Wednesday, and I started having second thoughts. But, you know, the Lord is so gracious to help us get what we need. How are we doing? We’re up. Okay.

So, as I was mentioning, this is the last general convention photo before the pandemic that was held at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, and if we ask these people the question, are you happy? It’s obvious what their answer would be, and there’s another general convention coming up in a few months, and we should put a plug in for that at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, July 19 through 24, if you can join us there. We really like you to come and be there.

Brother Ernie Kensley is our registrar, and he’s in the room. So for those of you who are here, you have no reason not to come. So, anyway, our thoughts tonight come from a series of difficult experiences our family went through the last couple of years, and it seemed like they were piling up one after another, and eventually we had to go back and kind of review what our consecration vows mean to us, and five of the things that jumped out to me really quickly were we were called into a relationship with God by His grace.

That’s the first thing that came to my mind. The second thing that came to my mind is God is always our Father, and he’s always present for strength and comfort. Third, we’re not immune from the troubles of the world, and I think sometimes, as Christians, many of our friends think they should be immune from the things of the world. But we know that’s not true.

We also know that suffering is an essential part of our development as new creatures, and we know that God gives us tools to rejoice even during our trials, and that comes not only from our relationship with the Heavenly Father, but from the relationship with our brethren, and it’s so important, by the Lord’s grace. Last year I was given an assignment at the Portland convention to speak on Matthew 5, 8.

And you could probably quote it without even looking it up, but it says, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Now, in preparation for that discourse, I looked deeper into a word I really hadn’t looked that deep into before, and that research led me to an appreciation of God’s will more deeply, just when I need it. So look at this picture again, and if we ask, are they all happy?

We’d say, yes, and we ask, have they been going through difficult trials? Every one of them have been going through difficult trials, haven’t they? Everyone in this room goes through difficult trials.

Also, I noticed this afternoon there was a lot of talk in the testimony meeting about the importance of ecclesias getting together, and so I wanted to bring the love of your brethren from Seattle. This is not our class in Seattle. It’s much, much smaller.

All right, let’s go back a few years. 20, 19. This was the Seattle class. It was basically the Keith and Christensen family class. There was five of us.

But numbers don’t mean that much when you’re so close to each other. We would meet every weekend, every Sunday, we’d have our studies. We put on our convention every year with 100 to 120 coming, and we just were blessed to be together. But like a lot of other classes, our numbers diminished.

We lost Brother Dave, which was really difficult for us, and so this is what our class looks like today. We’ve gone from that little group of five to being a Zoom class. Now, how does that happen? Well, one way it happens is that the Lord’s will and his program is moving forward.

You’re getting so close to the end of the age. Classes are not only dwindling, they’re breaking up and disappearing. So if you look on this screen on the top left, we have Kathy and Brother Mike Ensley joined our class. Going across the top. That’s sister Joanna, of course.

And I’m in the corner in the middle square. That would be the best square on Hollywood Squares. Our brother Tim and Sister Don Krupa. On the next one to the right are Brother Jerry and Sister Debbie Moore, and then down the bottom is Brother Steve Milroy.

So how did we come together? We came together because these classes disappeared. Brother Mike was an elder in the. In the Spokane, Washington class. Everyone in his class passed away.

He was the only one left, and I Know, I’ve known Brother Mike since we were just real little kids. Tim and Don Krupa had a very small class in Cannon beach, and over the years it dwindled away until it was just them.

The same thing with the Moores. They found themselves isolated, and they actually called me up and asked if it would be possible for them to come join our class. Because Brother Jerry lived in the Northwest a long time ago. He had good relationships and fond memories of his studies there with the Krupas and the Keiths and with the Ensleys, and finally, on the bottom is Brother Steve Milroy, who was in the San Francisco Bay Area class, which dissolved after all.

The last elder brother, Doug Rossin, passed away a few years ago. So we’ve kind of cobbled together this class, a zoom class, and there’s one other member in our class named Sister Christy Becker, and if you don’t know Sister Christy, but you happen to tune into the Seattle convention last year, you know her through her playing of her violin. So many people listen and said, who was that beautiful violin violinist you had?

That was Sister Christie Becker, and she’s been just a joy to be added to our class. So that’s our class, and they wanted their love sent to you.

Oh, by the way, none of them live in Seattle. Oh, there’s another blank black box there, and that’s Sister Margie, and I didn’t get her picture in here either, but she’s right there.

And you, you can speak to her this.

So are you happy? You know, we just sang a hymn, and it proclaims that as a group, how happy are we? It’s not a question, it’s a statement. It’s a proclamation by the Lord’s people of coming kingdom blessings, and it’s important to recognize and remember that the happiness is always given in the future tense.

So we sang how happy are we, who in Jesus agree and expect soon his kingdom to share. We will sit in his throne and his glory make known and his praises shall sound everywhere. So we’re looking at happiness for us based on promises in the future. Let’s look at what Jesus had to say on this topic.

I want you to imagine yourself on that mountainside when Jesus started speaking and giving us the Sermon on the Mount. Now, here’s an illustration. You can find one of many on the Internet, and take a look here and put yourself on the ground, sitting at Jesus feet. You wanted to be there because he left the throngs and walked up this little hillside.

You loved his message so much, you followed him up there. So here he is, and listen to what he says.

This is Matthew 5:1 12 in the Phillips translation, which lists this section. As Jesus proclaims the new values of the kingdom, so he was giving new values of salvation. This is what it says. When Jesus saw the vast crowds, he went up the hillside, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began his teaching by saying to them, how happy are the humble minded, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

How happy are those who know what sorrow means, for they will be given courage and comfort. Happy are those who claim nothing, for the whole world will belong to them. Happy are those who are hungry and thirsty for goodness, for they shall be satisfied. Happy are the merciful, for they will have mercy shown to them. Happy are the utterly sincere, for they will see God.

Happy are those who make peace, for they will be sons of God. Happy are those who have suffered persecution for the cause of goodness, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs, and what happiness will be yours when people blame you and ill treat you and say all kinds of slanderous things against you for my sake? Be glad then. Yes, be tremendously glad, for your reward in heaven is magnificent.

They persecuted the prophets before your time in exactly the same way.

Well, as we read this, I can maybe hear some of you thinking, Brother Keith, you read that wrong. I’ve read the Beatitudes hundreds of times and it doesn’t say happy. It says a different word. I even have a plaque hanging on my wall. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are this it’s not happy. Well, that’s true, and I chose this translation on purpose, and there are other translations that use happy instead of blessed. But I’d like to suggest that if you use just blessed or just happy, we’re losing the impact of an extremely dynamic Greek word from which it originates. So let’s look at its full meaning. Let’s look it up on strong.

So is it blessed or is it happy?

The Greek word for blessed or happy is Makarios from Strong’s 3107 meaning blessed, happy, fortunate. Strong says in His Word says of this word in the New Testament, makarios is used to describe a state of spiritual well being and prosperity. It denotes a deep, abiding joy and contentment that comes from a right relationship with God. This term is often used to describe those who are favored by God and who experience his grace and favor in their lives.

There are actually three different meanings here. You could use happiness. You could use Blessed, you could use fortunate. So we’ll just look at these. Fortunate suggests that we are those who are invited to partake of the high calling.

And remember, it wasn’t for the vast crowd that Jesus was speaking here. Remember, he left them down the seashore because they thought they got what they came for. They got their healing, they got their food. Now he’s going up this little hillside and it’s his disciples who want to hear the kingdom message that follow him. So this high calling is expressed beautifully by Phillips in Hebrews 3:1, where he says, so then, my brothers in holiness who share the highest of all callings, I want you to think of the messenger and high priest of the faith.

We hold Christ Jesus, the highest of all callings. That’s the calling that he’s invited you to. Brethren. The next definition is happy suggests we have joy while suffering for Christ. In 1st Peter 5:10, we read, May the God of all grace, who has called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen and settle you.

And finally, blessed or blessed suggests we have God’s grace. Ephesians 2:8 says, God saved you by his grace when you believed, and you can’t take credit for this. It’s a gift from God.

So looking at the meaning of makarios in this way shows a deficiency of just using blessed or happy. Now, here’s one commentator’s description or explanation of this word. Makarios is a state of existence in relationship to God in which a person is blessed from God’s perspective, even when he or she doesn’t feel happy or isn’t presently experiencing good fortune. Negative feelings, absence of feelings or adverse conditions cannot take away the blessedness, the happiness of those who exist in relationship to God. This is so important when we think of how blessed we are, that this relationship was initiated by God, it wasn’t initiated by us.

So thus the apostle Peter Paul could say, I’m not saying I need anything. I learned to be happy with whatever I have. So no matter what’s going on in our lives, God is there for us. Here’s another description of Macarios taken from William Barclay’s book Gospel of Matthew. Blessed happy is an absolute.

It is true anytime, anywhere, now as in the first century. It describes that joy which has its secret within itself, that joy which is serene and untouchable and self contained, that joy which is completely independent of all the chances and the changes of life. It’s like God, it’s constant. When God speaks, it’s truth. When we have his blessedness, his happiness, his makarios.

We have it for certain. This is a powerful word when we think about it. Think how this shapes our relationship with God. For one thing, it dismantles the appeal of today’s popular prosperity gospel with its promise to give earthly wealth better physical health, higher positions at work or in society as a reward for praising God. That’s not what our calling is about.

And here are just three scriptures that point to the future blessings that put us in knowledge that this is going to come in the future. Starting now, we will be considering all of our scriptures in the Amplified Bible version, basically in the classic edition. The reason for that is the amplify uses all three of these definitions and I think it adds power to every place it’s used. Consider for a moment watching a little bird flying around. We have trees outside of our back door.

There’s a little forest there, and every once in a while I can see little birds flying birds. They hunt and peck for some food throughout the day, and sometimes you can see them. They’ll fly up and they’ve got a little seed or something in their mouth and they’ll find a little branch to sit on and they’ll sit there and it’s a resting stop for them.

Sometimes there’ll only be one branch and that’s the one they’ll go to. I’ve seen another bird come up and there’s two branches. But which branch is better for him to sit on? Does it matter? It doesn’t matter because it’s a resting spot.

Imagine if there’s a third branch there and it falls across those other two branches and makes like a little triangle. You’ve probably seen birds do this, and I have to. They’ll actually sit there and they can kind of nestle themselves down and instead of a resting stop, they’ve got a resting place and it can become a foundation for a place for them to. To build a nest. That’s kind of in the same idea as Ecclesiastes 4:12 that talks about a threefold cord not being easily broken.

That third cord, that third definition of this word is really important. So how does it dismantle the popular prosperity gospel? Well, it does it by pointing to future kingdom blessings in the Beatitudes, which we just read, and here’s just. I just put two of them up.

Verse 5. Blessed Makarios are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. We haven’t inherited the earth yet, have we? But we look forward to that day. Verse 8.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Have any of you seen God? We’ve felt God, we’ve seen God’s works. We know he’s working with us. But in the kingdom, we’re going to see God.

Macarios points to future kingdom blessings When Jesus spoke at a house of a prominent Pharisee. This is recorded in Luke 14:13, 15. There he says, when you give a banquet or a reception, or invite the poor, the disabled, the lame and the blind, then you will be blessed, happy, fortunate to be envied, because they have no way of repaying you, and you will have recompensed at the resurrection of the just upright. When one of those who reclined at the table with him heard this, he said to him, blessed, happy, fortunate, and to be envied is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. Future blessings, but beautiful blessings.

And again in Revelation. Then I looked, and this is what I saw. The Lamb stood firmly established on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 had his name and his Father’s name inscribed on their foreheads, signifying God’s own possession. Then I heard the distinct words of a voice from heaven saying, right, blessed, happy, prosperous, to be admired are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, blessed indeed, says the Spirit, so that they may have rest and have relief from their labors and for their deeds, for their deeds do follow them.

We could look at just a couple of examples of this Macarios acting out in individual lives, and we’re just going to look at two of them. Consider Jesus words to Peter. This is in Matthew 16:13, 16 and then Matthew 16:17. Consider Jesus words to Peter. Blessed, happy, fortunate to be envied are you because your eyes they do see and your ears they do hear.

Then Jesus answered him, blessed, happy, fortunate, and to be envied. Are you Simon bar Jonah, for flesh and blood, men have not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. So we get this feeling, we get get this knowledge through the Holy Spirit from God, from nowhere else. Consider what they said about mary in Luke 1:45. It says, Blessed, happy to be envied is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of all the things that were spoken to her from the Lord.

And you know, Mary is held such a high regard, she’ll be immortalized forever. But she wasn’t perfect. We know she didn’t do anything to merit this choice other than being faithful. There were probably other ones that were there, women that could have been chosen and Some looked at Mary and put her on, maybe on a higher place than Jesus wanted her to be. He wanted the message to be to the disciples.

And we have this narrative in Luke 11:27, where Jesus actually corrects a woman in the crowd who kind of lists Mary up as being something more higher than the disciples. It says. Now it occurred that as he was saying these things, a certain woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, blessed are happy and to be envied is the womb that bore you and the breast that you sucked. But he said, blessed, happy to be envied. Rather are those who hear the word of God and obey and practice it.

So this idea of suffering is a large part of this word, but it will lead somewhere really outstanding. We can’t even believe where it leads. First Peter 4:14 says, if you are censured and suffer abuse because you bear the name of Christ, blessed are you. Happy, fortunate to be envied with life, joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of your outward condition, because the spirit of glory, the spirit of God is resting upon you. On their part he is blasphemed, but on your part he is glorified.

And then the words of James in James 1:12, Blessed, happy to be envied is the man who is patient under trial and stands up under temptation. For when he has stood the test and been approved, he will receive the victor’s crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

I’d like to talk just for a minute about two sisters in the Seattle class who have shown joy in their suffering and in their challenges.

The first is Sister Joanna Christensen. I think everyone in this room knows Sister Joanna. You know that she had cancer a few years ago. She had treatment and went back into remission. Last year, she got the word that the cancer was back and there was no more treatments for it.

At that point, she told everyone that she felt free because she didn’t have to worry about any more doctor’s appointments. She didn’t have to worry about seeking the best treatment. She felt a calm that she could just turn herself and put her in the Lord’s hands and not worry anymore about cancer.

That’s such a beautiful attitude to take. You’ve all known Sister Joanna for a long time, and that’s just a wonderful example, and I hope that it’s an example I can follow.

The second sister in our class, no longer with us is my mother, and it’s a picture of me, and my mother and I used to Always bring my mother’s love to conventions with me. Except for one time I neglected to bring her love one time, and Brother Homer Montag is here, and I don’t know if he was leading a testimony or I was, but I mentioned bringing love from the class and some others.

And Brother Homer, when he started to speak, said, brother Byron, I’m sure you wanted to bring the love of your mother, your dear mother, with you. I still remember that. So I’m bringing the love of my mother.

The reason I’m bringing her love and her as an example, when she was older, she was wheelchair bound and she couldn’t do what she wanted to do and what she had been doing her whole life, and we would read this scripture and this scripture, such a beautiful scripture. But it started to bother her in her old age. It says, consider it pure joy. My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know the testing of your faith produces perseverance finish.

Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be sure and complete, not lacking anything. I don’t know how many discussions we had, but she said, you know, Byron, I just can’t feel joyous, and what I’m going through right now, and I feel like it’s a display of a lack of faith, and so we would talk about it. We talk about examples of our other brethren going through the same thing.

And then we talk about these scriptures in total. We’d have to remind ourselves, and by the time we were done, she would remember, oh, yeah, I have to go through these if it’s going to develop me to be become part of the bride of Christ.

All those discussions we had kind of hit me this week when I was thinking about this eye surgery, this cancer eye surgery I just had, because I’ve had a few other incidents of health issues in the past, but they were like 20 years ago, and now I’m older, and all of a sudden I’m seeing this from her point of view at an older age. So, brother, when you get to an older age, try to remember back to the days of your youth when you were vigorous, and you can remember all the things we’re going through or to prepare us. She didn’t have a lack of faith.

And I don’t have time to tell you some of the stories about her younger days where she showed incredible faith and strength. I will in private discussion, if you want to ask me.

So, brethren, how happy are you now? We have another testimony tomorrow, but I want to give my testimony tonight. We had a watch day service on December 29th last year, where we shared the experiences of 2024 and what we were looking forward to in 2025, and I mentioned to our class that my focus was going to be on this Greek word, makarios, and how the depth of the meaning had struck me, and no matter where I found myself, no matter if I’m feeling good, I’m feeling bad, I’m on top of the mountain, under the mountain, I want to remember that God’s invited me into this relationship.

It was the next day. I had an eye appointment. I saw the doctor. I’d been getting this little thing checked since 2013. Every year I’d go in.

He said, no problem, no change. I’ll see you next year. On that day, he said, it’s turned into an ocular melanoma, and I thought, macarios, how’s that going to affect me going forward in 2025? And the thing is, the doctor that I went to was 70, 70 miles north of where we live.

This was a specialist I had to go see. So I had this long drive home, and as I was driving home, thanks to Bluetooth, I could get on the phone. My first phone call was to my wife, and I told her what was going on, and what she told me, as we can remember, is, you know, we’ve gone through a lot of health problems between the two of us and our younger son, and the Lord’s always been there to help us get through, and he’ll get us through this, too.

And I thought, that’s really true, and I left it there. My second phone call was to Sister Charlene Mora, and I called Sister Charlene because she got news of a cancer she wasn’t expecting many years ago, and I wanted to talk to her about what her reaction was and what the process was like going forward.

And as soon as she picked up the phone and I told her, he said, oh, wait, I’m going to put you on speakerphone. So Peter is going to be here, too.

Their first comment was, we’re so sorry. What can we do to help? I said, well, right now I just want to talk. That’s all I want to do, and so we talked.

I told him what the thing was, what the treatments were, Peter was Googling what all the treatment methods were, what the best ones were, and, you know, just talking was really helpful. We probably talked for half an hour as I was driving down the freeway. The third thing I had to do was tell the class, because the day before, all they knew is I was going to see this doctor. So I sent out an email, let the class know I was going, and I got a phone call from Brother Tim Krupa.

He said, byron, that’s really rough. We need to do something. We need to do something for you, and what we can do is relieve the stress from you because you’re going to be going to doctors and getting tests and all this and surgery. We’re going to clear the next three months.

Brother Mike and I will take care of the class duties. Okay, well, that did take stress off of me. The fourth thing that came into my mind is, oh, yeah, I have a speaking assignment in Orlando.

Actually, I have two. I’d already decided I was going to talk about the subject of McCarthy. So I saw Brother J. Slavich’s name on the. On the program as being the chief boss.

You’re the chief boss, Jay. So I called him and told him what was going on. Brother J says, that’s really bad. What can we do to help? What can we do to help?

I said, would it be possible for you to give my second assignment to someone else? Because I’ve already started a discourse, and he said, yes, we’ll take care of it, and Brother Brad Sweeney is going to take my place tomorrow, and I thank Brother Brad for doing that.

Finally, I asked. I called Brother Stephen Yaich because he’s the chairman of the dawn editorial committee, and I had a writing assignment that was going to be due, and I told him what was going on. I said, would it be possible for me to have this shifted to someone else? And Brother Steve said, I never even heard of eye cancer. What’s that?

And so we had a little discussion, and then, of course, it immediately turned to, well, let me see what I can do. It took five minutes before I got a phone call back. Another brother volunteered to take it. Take that off your plate.

You don’t need that stress.

So through that little experience, what did I learn? Well, I learned what I already knew. If I have a problem, I go to my brethren. The first thing they’re going to do is ask me, what can I do to help? That’s been my experience my whole Christian life.

What can I do to help? And I want to share that back, and it reminded me of one of my favorite scriptures, going back many years after some difficult trials, and it’s this second Corinthians 13:4. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Isn’t that a beautiful verse? Yeah. Jesus is going to let us have sufferings. God’s going to provide us opportunities to prove ourselves through sufferings. At the same time, he’s going to comfort us.

We felt the comfort in our experiences in life. I’m sure you have too, but they just don’t end there. The rest of the verse says God comforts you when you’re going through it for a purpose. Well, really for two purposes. To give you peace of mind, but also so you can give your brethren peace of mind when they go through something similar.

So, brethren, I leave you with a word and a scripture, and I hope that they’re encouraging to you that speak to our deep and precious relationship to our Heavenly Father and to each other. Makarios, a dynamic word. Fortunate because we are those who are drawn to God through Jesus. Blessed because we have God’s grace, and happy because we have joy while suffering for Christ, and finally, A Dynamic Scripture, 2nd Corinthians 13:4.

This is from the Phillips Thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He is our Father and the source of all mercy and comfort, for he gives us comfort in our trials so that we in turn may be able to give the same sort of sympathy to others and theirs. Brethren, may we remember the comfort we get in our sufferings and let us use them to comfort each other in our brethren’s lives. So I ask you in closing, are you happy?

Yes, I’m sure you are. May the Lord bless you and give you strength and comfort every day of your Christian walk.

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