Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

Triumphant Thinking

Surrounded by so many who are down in the mouth, convinced we are headed for doom (with statistics to prove it), we need the reminder that Christ is still triumphant. Our circumstances may be challenging, but God is not wringing His hands, wondering how He is going to work things out. That kind of negative reasoning deserves one of my favorite Greek words in response: Hogwash.

Read how G. Campbell Morgan addresses all this:

I have no sympathy with people who tell us today that these are the darkest days the world has ever seen. The days in which we live are appalling, but they do not compare with conditions in the world when Jesus came into it. Historians talk of the Pax Romana and make much of the fact that there was peace everywhere, the Roman peace. Do not forget that the Roman peace was the result of the fact that the world had been bludgeoned brutally into submission to one central power . . . 

Notwithstanding the prevailing conditions, the dominant note of these Letters, revealing the experience of the Church, is a note of triumph. The dire and dread facts and conditions are never lost sight of—indeed, they are there all the way through. The people are seen going out and facing these facts—and suffering because of these facts—but we never see them depressed and cast down, we never see them suffering from pessimistic fever. They are always triumphant. That is the glory of Christianity. If ever I am tempted to think that religion is almost dead today, it is when I listen to the wailing of some Christian people: “Everything is wrong,” or “Everything is going wrong.” Oh, be quiet! Think again, look again, judge not by the circumstances of the passing hour but by the infinite things of our Gospel and our God. And that is exactly what these people did.¹

I love his spunk! 

GET DEVOTIONAL E-MAILS

Sign up to receive Chuck Swindoll's Daily Devotional in your inbox seven days a week.
 
Sign Up