You can’t control everything in life. You can’t always control the things that will happen to you, but you are in control of how you react to the things that happen to you. Those are hard words to live by, but so true.

Jesus spoke of this often. He didn’t tell us that we wouldn’t be persecuted, but he did tell us how we are to respond to those who persecute us. He said ‘bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse”. Cursing those who persecute us is the natural response to persecution, but Jesus tells us to “bless those who persecute” us. We have a choice as to how we will respond, we can “bless” or we can “curse”. How we respond is within our control. We can’t always control whether or not we will be persecuted. In fact, if we are living for Jesus, chances are we will be persecuted, The bible even says, “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim 3:12). So while we can’t control whether or not someone chooses to persecute us, we can choose to respond in a godlike way, to “bless” and not “curse”.