July 29

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. — 2 Cor 4:8

We who are Christians should strive always to live a victorious life.

Of course we will have our burdens, our struggles, our trials, our sufferings, but we should never be defeated or crushed by them. Our Scripture today sets the lesson for us. “We are pressed on every side, yet not straitened; perplexed, yet not unto despair; … smitten down, yet not destroyed.” Our Master overcame the world. He was never once defeated.

He wants us to live the same way. Of course we cannot do it ourselves, un–helped, but we may get help from Him, and be “more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” Even if our physical life is broken, exhausted, destroyed, that need not be defeat. “Though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day.”

We have a glorious life within us, which nothing in this world can touch. “We know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, …eternal, in the heavens.”