A Reflection Upon John 16:33
"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).
There is a vast difference between happiness and blessedness. The Apostle Paul had imprisonments and pains, sacrifice and suffering up to the very limit; but in the midst of it all, he was blessed. All the beatitudes came into his heart and life in the midst of those conditions.
Paganini, the great violinist, came out before his audience one day and made the discovery just as they had ended their applause that there was something wrong with his violin. He looked at it a second and then saw that is was not his famous and valuable one. He felt paralyzed for a moment, then turned to his audience and told then there had been some mistake and he did not have his own violin. He stepped back behind the curtain thinking that it was still where he had left it, but discovered that someone had stolen his and left that old secondhand one in its place.
He remained back of the curtain a moment, then came out before his audience and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I will show you that the music is not in the instrument, but in the soul." And he played as he had never played before; and out of that secondhand instrument, the music poured forth until the audience was enraptured with enthusiasm and the applause almost lifted the ceiling of the building because the man had revealed to them that music was not in the machine, but in his own soul.
It is our mission, tested and tried believers, to walk out on the stage of this world and reveal to all earth and heaven that the music is not in conditions, not in things, not in externals, but the music of life is in your own soul.
If peace be in the heart,
The wildest storm is full of solemn beauty,
The midnight flash but shows the path of duty,
Each living creature tells some new and joyous story,
The very trees and stones all catch a ray of glory,
If peace be in the heart.
[By Charles Francis Richardson, quoted in Streams in the Desert, Charles E. Cowman, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996, 288-89]
Arnie Gentile
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Posted by Arnie Gentile at 10/16/2009 5:00 PM 
Categories: Devotional Reflection
Tags: Christianity God Defending Christianity Christian Apologetics
Categories: Devotional Reflection
Tags: Christianity God Defending Christianity Christian Apologetics
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