OPTIMISM
VERSUS CHRISTIAN FAITH!
Phil
4:12-13
12
I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all
things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to
suffer need.
13
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
2
Cor 3:4-5
4
And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
5
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but
our sufficiency is of God;
Oswald
Chambers (1874 – 1917) said this about the difference between optimism and
faith in God: “Optimism, apart from a man's belief and his acceptance of
Christianity, may be healthy-minded, but it is blinded; when he faces the facts
of life as they are, uncolored by his temperament, despair is the only possible
ending for him.” The point is that the optimist, apart from Christ, has no
solid foundation for his optimism.
Of
course, optimism is much preferred as a philosophy. Its opposite is
dull, bitter and unattractive. Optimism expects things to, somehow, improve
while pessimism expects things only to get worse. Both philosophies are
self-fulfilling. But optimism alone can’t account for the improvement. It knows
not the source of the improvement. Optimism worships fate or an assortment of
lesser gods. Pessimism is certain there is a devil.
Only
a faith based upon a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is reasonable. It is
optimistic, to be sure, but there is a solid foundation for being so. “If God
be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31) The Christian optimist may not
know the plan but he knows there is one. He is convinced both by the teachings
of God’s Word and the accumulation of personal experience that God has a plan –
and that it is a good plan.
Rom
8:28
28
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to
them who are the called according to his purpose.
The cross-carrying Christian ... is both a
confirmed pessimist and an optimist the like of which is to be found nowhere
else on earth. A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
Dear
Lord, let me be optimistic. Let my optimism be firmly founded upon your
character. My hope is in you. AMEN
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