How are you doing, Friend?
What can motivate us to follow in Jesus’s footsteps? What helps us
know we are okay to express our faith boldly? We can express gratitude
for God’s tender care for us and Jesus’s example of suffering which
ended with glory. As Jesus suffered and was glorified, so the same is
true for us. We will suffer in this life but be glorified in the next.
So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must
endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your
faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies
gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your
faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise
and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the
whole world.
1 Peter 1:6-7 NLT
When you review the whole history of the Savior in his life and
death; his nights of care and prayer; his agonies in the garden; the
stressful night he endured before his crucifixion; his despairing cry,
“My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!” (Matthew 27:46). Think how
faithful he was to you; many nights alone in some cold mountain he
persisted in solemn prayer to God. He suffered all this not for himself,
but for you who were ruined. It was for you he toiled all his life of
care — it was your miserable sins that crushed him in the garden.
Matt | 
