Hope in Times of HopelessnessSample

Our Hardships

The people Malachi addresses in his book had returned to their land from exile with great optimism. However, as they began to rebuild their ruined homeland, their daily lives were still overshadowed by much hardship.

For example, they were saddled with a corrupt judicial system in which the poor suffered injustice at the hands of the rich and powerful. This explains why in Malachi 13-15, they complain bitterly by saying, “It’s foolish to serve the All-Powerful God. What do we get for obeying Him? See how happy those arrogant people are. Everyone who does wrong is successful, and when they do wrong, they always get away with it.”

Today, as post-Covid challenges and the war in Ukraine lead to increased fuel and food prices worldwide, life has become difficult and unbearable for many people, even though large corporations and the rich seem to get richer. Like the returned exiles in this Malachi passage, our hardships today can easily make us feel about God in the same cynical way these people felt about God in this passage.

In Luke 9:58, Christ said, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” These words remind us that Christ was the ultimate exile who, for our sake, voluntarily laid aside the glories of heaven to become a human being and die a criminal’s death on the cross. His self-sacrifice brings us the salvation of God when we repent of our sin and place our faith in what He did for us on the cross.

As we face hardships as Christians today, we do well to allow the gospel to remind us about Christ on the cross who, on our behalf, faced the greatest hardship anyone has ever experienced, even though no one has ever lived as perfect and sinless a life as he lived.

The gospel reminds us that because Christ, on the cross, for our sake, was forsaken by the Father, our hardships are not because the Father has forsaken us. The gospel also reminds us that our hardships are not because the Father is punishing us for sin in our lives because, on the cross, Christ took upon Himself the punishment due to us for our sins.