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| Photo by Ablakok 2015 |
When Christians suffer, there is the danger that bitterness
may grow in our heart, if we get angry with God for allowing this trouble into
our life. Even Job, a man so just that God bragged about him to Satan (Job 1:8), went through
unimaginable trials with the loss of his wealth, family, and health. At times
he questioned God, yet he remained faithful to Him throughout his ordeal,
proclaiming “the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name
of the Lord” (Job 1:21).
For the unsaved, God may allow trials so that they come to the end of themselves and realize they are sinners in need of a Savior. Once we are saved by placing our faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) as the only Way to Heaven (John 14:6), God may still permit suffering in our lives.
If we are willfully sinning, He may chasten us to bring us back in line with His perfect will (Hebrews 12:6). Even if we are faithfully following Him, He may allow trials in our life to strengthen our dependence on and faith in Him (Psalm 9:9; 27:5; 37:39), to shape us into Christ’s image (Who suffered for us even though He was without sin; Philippians 3:10), or to give us experience, wisdom and compassion to help others going through similar testing (Galatians 6:2; 2 Corinthians 1:4-7).
But as born-again Christians (John 3:3-8), we can find peace and joy through the trouble in knowing that His grace is sufficient, that His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9), and that He will help us! (Psalm 46; Isaiah 41:10). Job’s sons were taken from him, his “friends” criticized him, and his wife told him to curse God and die. But God’s Word assures us that He will never leave us nor forsake us! (Hebrews 13:5).
Our Lord Jesus Christ experienced all the testing we could
possibly face, yet He never yielded to sin. He now sits on the throne of grace,
freely offering us mercy and grace to help us if we boldly ask Him (Hebrews 4:15-16).
We should realize that He knows what we need before we even ask Him (Matthew 6:8,32; Luke 12:30), yet He wants us to pray because it changes us. His perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18), and His presence strengthens and upholds us so that we have no need to be afraid (Isaiah 41:10). God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). The Bible commands us to “Fear not!” 365 times – one for every day of the year!
He urges us to cast all our cares, or anxieties, on His broad, loving shoulders (1 Peter 5:7). We can find peace by keeping our mind, heart and priorities fixed on Him (Isaiah 26:3-4), through prayer, studying and mediating on His Word, and praising and worshipping Him in all circumstances, knowing that this is His perfect will (1 Thessalonians 5:18). God is not the author of confusion, but of peace (1 Corinthians 14:33).
We can try to carry our own burdens of sin, guilt, shame, regret, unforgiveness and bitterness ourselves, and grow weary to the point of exhaustion and despair. Or we can lay them down at the foot of His cross, where He paid the complete price for all of these, once and for all, freeing us to find His rest (Matthew 11:28) and to receive all the blessings He longs to give us (Luke 11:13).
He exchanges our burdens for His blessings, and He renews and transforms our mind if we turn from thoughts of evil and the darkness of this world (Romans 12:2) to meditating on His light of truth, beauty and excellence (Philippians 4:8).
The greatest blessing we could have in this life is to be in the center of His perfect will, for He created each of us for a purpose designed long before we were even conceived (Psalm 139:13,16). We are His workmanship (Ephesians 2:8-10), created for a specific plan destined for good and not for evil (Jeremiah 29:11-13).
When believers face Jesus Christ at the judgment seat, it will not be to pay for our sins (He has already paid for these in full) or to determine whether we can enter Heaven, for He has given us His perfect righteousness allowing us to spend eternity in the presence of Holy God (Romans 3:25).
Rather, at the judgment seat, believers will be rewarded for service done for Christ with the right motives, or we will suffer loss for not using opportunities He gave us to fulfill His perfect plan for our life (2 Corinthians 5:10). How sad it would be to miss out on these opportunities and rewards because we gave up too soon (Galatians 6:9), losing hope in our own ability (with good reason) yet failing to trust in His unfailing power!
No matter what struggles we face in this life, we can have victory in Christ Who has overcome all the evil in this world (John 16:33). If we have repented of our sins and asked Him into our heart as Lord and Savior, we have the glorious hope – meaning the sure and joyful expectation – of eternal life with Him in Heaven, and the hope of victory in all our earthly woes (Romans 15:13).
Where there is life, there is hope! (Ecclesiastes 9:4) Jesus wants us to enjoy abundant life in Him (John 10:10) here and now, in the land of the living (Psalm 27:13), to choose life over death as commanded in His Word (Deuteronomy 30:19; Proverbs 13:14). His promises preserve our life (Psalm 119:50).
Realizing that our body is His holy temple (1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19), which we should present to Him daily as a holy, living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2), will help us make the right choices to honor our body as His dwelling place. Not only is this pleasing to Him, but healthful choices in how we nourish and rest our body and protect it from toxins and other harm will help to keep our vessel in optimal working order to serve Him and persevere through trials.
Time on this earth to serve Him is short (James 4:14; John 9:4), so may we utilize it to the greatest extent possible! Praise God that He is always with us, faithful to hear and answer our prayers, to love, protect, guide and comfort us in our earthly journey until we meet Him face to face in glory!
Isaiah 41:10: Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
© 2016 Laurie Collett
Reposted from the archives
4 comments:
Dear Laurie,
When going through a crisis in one way or another, a Christian can forget that he can cast all his burdens on the Lord because he cares for them, and he is left carrying them himself. Going by my own experience, I think this has a lot to do with a distorted view of God, such, for example, as the worldview of Roman Catholicism, where it's actually taught in its catechism that when Jesus died on the cross, not all sins were atoned for, and thus a bloodless sacrifice is made every day at every Catholic church altar before any form of perfection can be achieved. Therefore any Catholic believer who dies with an unconfessed "mortal" sin without going through Penance will go straight to Hell for all eternity - even if he was so faithful for much of his life!
Once set in the subconscious, it can be very difficult to change, no matter how long since his true conversion and how much he reads the Bible.
But thanks be to the love and grace of God! He has a way to undo these former views according to each individual. For me, Job is a very good example on how he was able to keep his faith in God intact, despite what he had to go through.
By reading of the life of Job, along with the lives of other saints in the Bible, my confidence in the grace of God has grown.
An excellent post, God bless.
Dear Frank,
Praise God that His gift of salvation is so simple that even a child can understand and accept it! And yet our convoluted thinking, traditions and philosophies insist on adding conditions to this freely given gift that we do not deserve and cannot earn.
He is faithful and gives us reminders of His faithfulness, not only in our own lives but in His Word, carefully preserved to encourage us when our faith falters.
Thanks as always for sharing your experience and perspective. God bless,
Laurie
Great post, Laurie. There has been a false idea presented that as Christians we should always find life easy, and the problems should all disappear. As a result, when Christians go through struggles and are not experiencing the blessings they had hoped for, they feel like God has forgotten about them and become depressed and resentful. They don't seem to understand that submitting to God means allowing him to do what ever he wantw with them and trusting him to make it turn out the proper way.
Thanks, Donald! If we look back on our own lives, we can see many examples where things didn't turn out as we had hoped and prayed, and yet God took the trial and worked it out for our good. Even if we have forgotten or don't yet see how that applies to our own life, there are many examples in the Bible to remind us, praise God!
God bless,
Laurie
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