There is that of God to be seen in such a day as cannot be seen in another. His power in holding up some, his wrath in leaving of others; his making of shrubs to stand, and his suffering of cedars to fall; his infatuating of the counsels of men, and his making of the devil to outwit himself; his giving of his presence to his people, and his leaving of his foes in the dark; his discovering [disclosing] the uprightness of the hearts of his sanctified ones, and laying open the hypocrisy of others, is a working of spiritual wonders in the day of his wrath, and of the whirlwind and storm.
We are apt to overshoot, in the days that are calm, and to think ourselves far higher, and more strong than we find we be, when the trying day is upon us. . . . We could not live without such turnings of the hand of God upon us. We should be overgrown with flesh, if we had not our seasonable winters. It is said that in some countries trees will grow, but will bear no fruit, because there is no winter there.
~ John Bunyan: Seasonable Counsel; or Advice To Sufferers
We must
understand that there is more to learn and more of God to be gained our times
of suffering. John Bunyan understood this. A person needs only read his
biography. Believe it or not, God is usually closest to us in these times but
because of our pain...we don't or can't see Him there. We must try to see Him
during these times and what He has to teach us. It builds a faith that is
capable of enduring death and will not fold up under the first sign of pressure
and misery. We sorely lack this in feel-good preaching and applications sermons
that are more interested or content with preaching to where people are at
rather than where they need to be.
What's more
is if the faith is way it should be it will be able to endure hardship and
struggling with a wry sense of grace that can only come from God. It is in
these struggles...when we are walking through the valley of death struggling to
keep not only our lives but our faith also...that we pick up the supplies and
resources we need to scale the mountains of faith and reach their pinnacle in
Jesus.
If they
forced our Master to struggle...how much more will we struggle and suffer if we
willingly choose to follow in His footsteps. He was tempted, we will be
tempted. He suffered, we will suffer. He died, we will die. Christians that do
not suffer are not Christian. Christians that do not die to self will not rise
again as a new creation. The two principles are inseparably linked. To live is
to die and to die is to live. The Christian must be consoled with the fact that
there is always the glorious culmination of the suffering in the eternal
reward. One must never lose sight of this fact. That is why we are repeatedly
called to persevere in the faith until the bitter end. It is in the suffering
and pressure that the diamond of faith is born. It is in the unremitting
pressure of suffering and struggle that the ugly coal and carbon of sin is best
squeezed until there is no more darkness in it. What emerges is beauty
personified in the glorified believer who is the image or impression of the
glorified Christ. This is why Jesus prayed the prayer for all believers in John
17...
John
17:20-24 “My prayer [disciples] is not for them alone. I pray also for
those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may
be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also
be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given
them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are
one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete
unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even
as you have loved me, “Father, I want those you have given me to be
with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me
because you loved me before the creation of the world.
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