Main news for 28 October 2019

Here is what is more difficult in the Christian life. One Christian woman with a very big experience said that she has almost never met joyful Christians in her life. But why is it like that? The Gospel, is it not a Joyful News, the news that God is love, that He forgives us, that He is with us, that He is in us! Is that not sufficient, in order to indwell in joy?

But this joy is paid with a very high price. Do we have to forget the cross, remembering the resurrection? Can we resuscitate with Christ, without being crucified with Him? And this means a constant participation in His sufferings for the sins of the world, for our sins. This means a heart quivering of any demonstration of aversion and bleeding of misfortunes, of pains and the death around us. What joy can then be here?!

That's why the apostle Paul writes: "finally... ". He indeed writes this letter being in prison, and not in some kind of palace. He knows very well this paradoxicality, this tension of the Christian life, but considers still that joy surmounts, because Christ did not die for nothing. He overcame death, He atoned the sins of the world, and ours also.