Change Your Perspective
Posted by Melissa
Can you think of a time you wanted to give up? Maybe you were doing a school project, and the teacher assigned you to a group with the most difficult person in the class. Or maybe it’s your parents. They keep fighting, and even though you keep praying for them, you think they’d just be better off divorced. Whatever the case, we’ve all been in hopeless situations. Thankfully as Christians, we have a reason to not lose heart!
Read 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, then focus your attention on verse 17.
What does it mean that your inner person is being renewed?
How does that renewal happen?
How are our present troubles described?
What does Paul mean by the phrase “an incomparable weight of glory”? (See verse 17.)
What does this passage have to do with dealing with difficult times? Explain.
How can we keep an eternal perspective while we are living on earth? List some practical ways.
Are you in a hopeless situation? Where are you looking for encouragement? Why?
We all go through difficult times. Heartache, loneliness, and suffering are just a few of the things in this life that leave us feeling defeated and discouraged. No one is immune to tough situations, not even Christians. However, as believers, we must press on.
That’s what Paul taught in this passage. He said that even though we are beaten down on the outside, on the inside we are being renewed. God uses our temporary adversity to mold us and shape us into the image of Christ. What a glorious thing to know that in our suffering, we are being made more like Him! Instead of focusing on the difficult circumstances around you today, look to Jesus and keep your focus there. Your hope lies in Him, not your circumstances.
For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.
—2 Corinthians 4:17
Reprinted from ec magazine. © 2010 LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. Used by permission.
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