Our responsibility is to be humble enough to admit that we need God’s grace. His grace-free gift of power-is the way to successfully endure trials. Weakness is an avenue for God’s strength to be revealed and made manifest.
Paul then goes onto say that he will boast all the more in his weaknesses, for then Christ’s power will rest on him. Wow! This revelation is a total game-changer. The key is found in 2 Corinthians 12 where the apostle Paul cries out to God to remove the “thorn in his flesh”, which was the suffering he was experiencing. God responds not by removing it, but rather with a perspective shifting statement: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 I have found a key that helps me unlock more endurance in life’s trials and confidence in God’s goodness, faithfulness and love in the middle of the heartache. We must be a people forged in fire if we are to fulfill the destiny God has planned for us. If we endure to the end, we will come out like pure gold, reflecting the nature of Christ. We are purified in the furnace of affliction. In the fires of life our faith is refined and established. It’s in the valley of the shadow that we find out what we really believe.įaith is not genuine unless it gets tested 1 Peter 1:7.
Though it’s not always pleasant, faith often needs the soil of suffering to grow. Trials cause the roots of our faith to grow deeper. The best version of ourselves is the one that looks most like Jesus. What appears to be a setback is actually a setup for fulfilling our destiny-living in all that Jesus’ resurrection provides as well as completing our individual calling. The purpose of our pain is to conform and transform us into Christ’s image. There is purpose in our pain, and knowing this purpose gives us hope, which enables us to persevere in difficulty. God uses the trials we experience to refine our character and make us more like Jesus. God has great plans for us, but life has no shortage of difficulties.
0 kommentar(er)
