What Your Trials Are and Are Not
I saw the following posted by Owen Strachan (provost and research professor of theology at Grace Theological Seminary) and it is worth sharing:
Your trials, Christian, aren’t accidents unplanned by God,
spiraling out of His control.
Your trials aren’t attacks—
God hating you and making you pay with bitter resentment.
Your trials aren’t mere allowances of God,
occurrences He oversees but aren’t really from Him.
Your trials are God’s appointments
in which He uses real pain and difficulty to
purify, grow, change, help, and deeply love you.
Is he right? Read the following Scriptures and let God’s truth about the ministry of trials saturate your heart:
Genesis 50:20 (Joseph to his brothers who betrayed him): “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to keep many people alive.”
Psalm 68:19: “Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden, the God who is our salvation.”
Psalm 119:71: “It is good for me that I was afflicted, so that I may learn Your statutes.”
James 1:2–5: “Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”
2 Corinthians 4:16–18: “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer person is decaying, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
Romans 8:28: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
2 Corinthians 12:9–10: “And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in distresses, in persecutions, in difficulties, in behalf of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Hebrews 4:14–16: “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let’s hold firmly to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things just as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let’s approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for help at the time of our need.”
1 Peter 1:6–9: “In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which perishes though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
1 Peter 5:10–11: “After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
The late Leonard Ravenhill said, “If you want to be like Jesus, remember, He had a wilderness, a Gethsemane, and a Judas.”
Praise the Lord for His kind, patient, and caring work in our lives for our good and His glory.
Keep running the race of faith with endurance. Inside the cover of my dad’s Bible, he wrote this: “Lord, I’m willing to receive what you give, relinquish what you take, to suffer what you allow, to be what you require, to do as you command.”
Pastor Jeff
“I want to hate my sins more than
I hate the sins of others who sin differently than I do.”
— Burk Parsons
“I want to hate my sins more thanI hate the sins of others who sin differently than I do.”