Trials in life test your faith

I Peter 1:7 (NLT)

These trials are only to test your faith to show that it is strong and pure. 

Peter wrote his two letters during the terrible persecutions of Christians under the Roman emperor, Nero.  Is there not a more horrible image than that of Christians being burned alive at night to entertain this madman?  Peter knew that these persecutions in Rome would spread to Roman provinces that he lists in his first verse, so he wrote his two letters to encourage these Christians not to lose their faith in the risen Christ. 

The trials that the early Christians faced---and many Christians in parts of the world today face---are much more “scary” that what most of us face today.  However, some of you reading these words may be facing a trial of potential loss of health or life itself.  So, you, especially, can relate to what the early readers of this letter—and this specific verse—were dealing with everyday. 

We all face all kinds of trials in our lives.  Some are worse than others, but they all are hardships that put our faith to the test.  There is the old phrase—a faith that cannot be tested cannot be trusted.  The Greek word for trials is “petrasmos” that means “a putting to proof by experiment” and the Greek word for test is “dokimazo” that means “to prove genuine” or “to prove that it will not fail”.  Your trials in life have a purpose, God allows them, in order to test and purity your faith.  God tests your faith by trials like a jeweler refines pure gold.  It takes 4 tons of gold ore to produce one ounce of pure gold.  The refining process requires high temperatures and lots of skimming of the worthless part of the ore.  God puts you through trials to burn off the worthless parts of your life—your selfishness, greed, hatred, lust, unkindness, bitterness, impatience, etc.  Pure gold is reflective.  After many trials, what ends up being reflected in your life is the image of Jesus formed in you.  When God looks at you, He sees Himself.

I have taught several classes over the years on the purpose of suffering.  When people carefully study and understand the purpose of suffering from a Biblical perspective, you almost wish that trials and hardship would come your way because of the ultimate and eternal benefits they produce in you.  Of course, I stated “almost wish”.  No one desires to suffer hardship or to be tested by trials, but when they come, they will produce great benefits if you keep the faith that God’s purposes will be met and your life will be reflective of His character, not your own. 

If you are being tested right now by a trial or trials in your life, please pray over this verse (and similar ones, many found in the two books by Peter) asking God to refine you and perfect you to reflect His purity and character.  And may you experience great blessings as you go through your trial(s).

All Scripture inspired by God

II Timothy 3:16 (CEV)

Everything in the Scriptures is God’s Word.  All of it is useful for teaching and helping people and for correcting them and showing them how to live.

There are several symbols used in Scripture to describe the Bible:

1.   Sword—Hebrews 4:12—it both hurts and heals (read also Ephesians 6:17)

2.   Hammer—Jeremiah 23:29—it reproves (read also II Corinthians 10:4-5)

3.   Seed—I Peter 1:23—it plants eternal truths (read also Luke 8:5-15)

4.   Mirror—James 1:23-25—it tells us who we really are (read also I Cor 13:12)

5.   Fire—Jeremiah 20:9—it can consume our lives (read also Luke 24:32)

6.   Lamp—Psalm 119:105—it is a guidebook, not a rulebook (read also Proverbs 6:23)

7.   Food—I Peter 2:2—it provides wisdom and knowledge for eternal life (read also I Corinthians 3:2 and Hebrews 5:14)

As the above verse states, the Bible is useful (the original Greek word means “profitable” or “advantageous”) to accomplish four goals—teaching, helping (actually convicting or reproving), correcting and showing us how to live.

Are you giving the Bible a chance to teach, reprove, correct, and train you to enable you to be adequate and equipped for every good work (II Timothy 3:16-17)? 

Too many Christians are spiritually anorexic.  Too many Christians are not spending time in the Word and, therefore, not receiving what the Bible claims it can give to enable Christians not only to serve others, but to make the best and right decisions in their own lives.  Too many decisions and beliefs based on our culture, the media, and our own feelings, not based on the Word of God.  Examples might include job and career decisions, how we use our resources, what we do with our time, and how we react to life’s challenges. 

“The need for knowledge of the Scriptures is obvious.  There are so many well-meaning Christians who are long on zeal, but short on facts……lots of enthusiasm and motivation, but foggy when it comes to scriptural truth.  They have a deep and genuine desire to be used by God, to reach the lost, serve in the church, invest their energies in the Kingdom of God, but their doctrinal foundation is shifting sand rather than solid rock.  They are at the mercy of their emotions, flying high one day, scraping the bottom the next.  To avoid being exposed to their vulnerability, most retreat into the background scenery of passivity because their ignorance of basic Scripture caused them embarrassment”—Charles Swindoll, Growing Deep in the Christian Life, 1986, page 9.

How well do you know your Bible?  How well are you living what you know?

No one can snatch you out of Jesus' hand

John 10:24-30 (NLT)

Jesus replied, “I have already told you, and you don’t believe Me. The proof is the work I do in my Father’s name. But you don’t believe Me because you are not My sheep. My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from Me, for My Father has given them to Me, and He is more powerful than anyone else.  No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand.  The Father and I are one.” 

The Jews asked Jesus if He was the Christ (the Messiah) and this was His answer.  He said that they did not believe Him, not only what He said, but also what He did.  He also said that their unbelief was because of their refusal to become like sheep (see below).  They had too much pride, too much tradition, too much hard-heartedness (and hard-headedness) to believe and follow Jesus.  That is the same problem for so many people today and throughout history. 

One of Jesus’ seven “I am” claims in John’s Gospel was that “I am the good shepherd who gives His life for the sheep” (John 10:11).  You’ve probably heard before that sheep in the Bible are representative of human beings.  If you have a strong ego and are easily insulted, you won’t like the comparison, but it’s true.

Sheep are described as dumb, not because of lack of intelligence, but because of a much stronger herd instinct.  If one sheep goes over a cliff, the rest will follow.  Humans are the same way.  We all have intelligence, but there’s a tendency to follow a leader and if this leader is not Christ, terrible things can happen.  How many intelligent people throughout history have blindly followed some evil leader?

Sheep are described as defenseless.  Unlike other animals with teeth, claws, fangs, etc., sheep have no natural defense mechanism to protect themselves.  People are the same way.  You are vulnerable to what someone called the “wolves of life”, e.g. disease, disasters, criminals, countless daily threats to your physical and spiritual lives, and the reality of death.  Without Christ in your life, you have no one to protect you against the schemes and the wiles of the evil one. 

Sheep are described as directionless.  Sheep tend to wander off and get lost.  So it is with those outside of the Lordship of Christ, there is no spiritual direction and so you are always searching for whatever is missing in your life.

Isaiah 59:2 states that “all of us like sheep have gone astray”.  The greatest need of human beings is to have a shepherd.  God provided that shepherd.  Note what Jesus claims in this passage---His sheep listen to Him, follow Him, they are given eternal life, and no one can take them away.  Now if you have any kind of pride and self-reliance, you will cringe at the thought of being like a sheep.  However, what peace of mind and heart it is to realize that once you have humbled yourself and given your life over the lordship—the shepherding—of Christ, you have present and eternal security that can never be taken away from you.  Why is Psalm 23 so beloved by people everywhere?  Because the Lord is proclaimed as “my  shepherd”.  He provides and protects and leads His people.

Jesus says that His sheep listen to His voice.  Do you hear His voice in your life?  If not, you are not studying your Bible.  You are not experiencing His presence through study and prayer and fellowship.  But, if you are practicing these things, your life is being touched by Christ every day and you know it.  This is the greatest blessing you can ever have in your life.

God has made you who you are and to do good works

Ephesians 2:10 (NCV) (Version 2)

God has made us what we are.  In Christ, God made us to do good works which He planned in advance for us to live our lives doing. 

Many years ago there was a popular Christian seminar series led by Bill Gothard.  Thousands of people would fill a room at the Indianapolis Convention Center for teachings every week night and all day Friday and Saturday.  The presentations and workshops focused on Christian Life Principles.  Gothard taught that there are six main areas of conflict in our lives---assurance of salvation, self-image, purpose in life, harmony at home, moral purity, and genuine friendships 

Ephesians 2:10 relates to the conflict of self-image and purpose in life.  The first sentence deals with your self-image--“God made you what you are” (other translations state that “we are His workmanship”).  You were designed by God and whatever your physical and other characteristics are, God prescribed them for His purpose.  Yet most people---and you need to ask yourself if you are one of these---are extremely self-conscious about how they look; particularly if there is some physical deficiency.  If you admit that there is something about your inborn features that you would change if you had the power to do so, you are admitting that God’s workmanship is inferior.  This attitude, in turn, raises problems with your trust in Him in other areas of your life.  Problems with self-image lead to over-attention on clothes, excessive shyness, difficulty in loving others, self-criticism, wishful comparison to others, wrong priorities, awkward attempts to hide unchangeable defects, and other evidences of self-rejection.

If you recognize any of these attitudes in your life, you must take steps to accepting yourself for who and how God created you.  Deficiencies in outward appearances have the potential to lead to the development of inward Christlike qualities and character that you never would develop otherwise.  Rather than resent how you look, thank God for the way He has made you.  As Gothard taught, “put yourself on God’s easel and purpose to cooperate with Him in developing inward qualities that will enable you to serve Him and put others before yourself.”  

The second sentence deals with your purpose in life.  God has made you in Christ to do good works, works that He has planned in advance for you to do.  Note that His plan for you involves your relationship with Christ.  Such works involve development of spiritual maturity (Colossians 1:28, II Peter 1:5-8) and applying the specific spiritual gifts He has given to you (Romans 12:6-21).  The more you focus on these pursuits, the greater assurance you will feel about the purpose and meaning of your life.  Such pursuits will also enable you to resist the attacks of Satan whose main goal is to deceive you into thinking that your life has no purpose or meaning. 

What main thoughts do you have and what new attitudes might you embrace as a result of meditating over these words, particularly those from the Word of God?  Never again have a self-rejection attitude.  You are who you are because God made you that way.  Accept this truth with gratitude and resolve to be who He wants you to be.     

God works in different way through different people

I Corinthians 12:6 (NCV)

And there are different ways that God works through people but the same God. God works in all of us in everything we do. 

The Scripture states that God works in different ways through different people.  OK, you can see that by simple observation that others are different from you and you are different in many ways from others.  Perhaps a more important truth, one that is no so obvious, yet one that needs to be understood and appreciated is that God is responsible for the differences that exist among people.  It is the same God who empowers each of His believers (by the way, Paul is speaking to believers, not the world of unbelievers) to have different gifts and capabilities.  No gift or capability is superior to another.  The person who can speak well and pray magnificent prayers is not superior to the person who cannot speak or pray well at all.  

Because there are different ways that God works through people, we should never, ever compare ourselves with others.  You can easily get caught up in the competitive world of business, sports, and other endeavors, start comparing yourself to others ugly things typically happen.  Comparison to others leads to a variety of emotions, from smugness and arrogant pride to jealousy, envy, and/or depression.  Whatever the result, comparing yourself to others is absolutely wrong.  You always lose when you do this.  If you constantly focus your life on comparing yourself to others, you will always find somebody better and somebody worse.  Someone once said that the main reason we compare ourselves with others is to find approval.  When you do this, you are always allowing others to control your life. 

Parents, teachers, coaches, and, especially business world people managers/executives compare people all the time.  “Do what sister Mary does”.  “Why can’t you be like Bobby?”  “Your brother would never do that”.   Your overall rating was less than Ed’s.  When you hear these kinds of comparisons as a child, they never leave you.  When you hear these comparisons as an adult, it can be very demoralizing (or generate excess pride).  Then think about this ……..what does advertising do…….ads for weight loss, building muscles, new clothes, new cars, etc.---they are forcing you to compare yourself and your situation with others.  The world value system at its finest and it’s unbiblical.

The Bible is clear that you are never compare yourself to others.  Read Galatians 6:4---“Let everyone be sure that he is doing his very best, for then he will have the personal satisfaction of work well done, and won't need to compare himself with someone else.” (LB).  And think about Romans 12:6: “Let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't.”. (The Message)

May you realize from this time forward that you are who God created you to be and you are not to be someone else.  You have gifts that God gave to you and you are to use those gifts to please Him, not worrying about pleasing anyone else.

“If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise”  -- von Goethe