“In the world, you will have trouble, but take courage; I have conquered the world.” John 16:33

Christ is speaking to his disciples and tells them, “Have courage, I have conquered the world.” How do we get so confused in today’s world that we fail to understand what he has conquered? So many of us strive to find joy and happiness in conquering the world so we might gain its riches and thereby find our joy and happiness. Alexander the Great is a wonderful example of the reality that man’s contentment is in his mind and not his possessions. It is said that Alexander, with all the world at his feet, cried because there were no more worlds to conquer. Phillip Homes writes that “The human heart is impossible to satisfy with temporal conditions or earthly goods. We always want more.” C.S. Lewis notes in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, that “true joy is the ache for something beyond this world, like those little moments in life when the light falls just a certain way on a summer evening that it stirs in you a deep longing that’s hard to define. Earthly pursuits cannot fill the void. The quest for true joy and happiness is connecting to something, not of this world – and that would be the movement of the Holy Spirit in your life.” It’s the spirit who will use this restlessness to awaken a spiritual hunger within you, this ache for something beyond this world. It will push you deeper and deeper into your relationship with God. Pursue Him. Allow that longing for Him to become the hottest fire in your heart, for that is where true joy and happiness are found.

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