Muscle Development!
Verse for Today: Friday, May 18, 2012
Psalms 66:11 – You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs.
God wants His children to build up a testimony for Him in this world. He is interested in developing character in the lives of His people and uses them to build His kingdom through them here on earth. They are living stones whom He chisels and shapes to fit into His structure. He allows His precious stones to go through the experience of fire to purify them to the utmost so that they become fit for His building according to His plan. God allows His children to be tempered through toughest experiences in life. His stones go through intense pressure to become gems for Him. These pressures and heat are often unbearable, but He gives them the grace to go through it to become what He wants them to be. Over the years, God’s children have gone through extremely difficult situations and experiences. They have been wronged by the world and are deprived of their civil rights. They have been unlawfully dealt with. Many had to go through flood, fire, physical abuse, imprisonment, mental torture, financial pressure, distress and rejection. Some had gone through starvation and others were separated permanently from their dear ones. Many had to go through brutal persecution and character assassination. Often there is no answer as to why they had to go through it all. But these are the tempering experiences God allows or permits in the lives of His children to make them what they ought to be for Him to use them to build His kingdom. But in every situation, He gives them the grace to go through it all. He fills them with His patience to handle their situations and allow these situations to teach them lessons in life. The prison experiences make them handle loneliness and friendlessness. The burdens they carry help to learn how to carry other people’s burdens. The tears they go through help them to learn how to wipe others’ tears.
Hello friend, are you aware of the goals the Lord has in allowing you to go through tough experiences in life? He wants you to learn life-linked lessons of trust, faith, patience and peace. He wants to teach you how to attain strength and stability during sever trials. He wants you to learn that He is trustworthy and dependable in all your circumstances. In all your trails, He wants you to understand that these experiences are meant not to destroy you, but to build you up. The trials are to see how far you can hold on and how to learn to hold more firmly on the Lord. The most touching truth to learn in times of difficulties is that when the Lord allows it in your life, He is not out there as an observer. He comes to be your companion in your prison cells and will give you rich divine fellowship. It is a time when you both can converse with each other intimately and exchange your emotions. When He allows burdens on your back, He comes to hold those burdens with you. When you go through grief, the Lord comes to share it with you and He even weeps with you as He did at Lazarus’ tomb. To the hungry, He comes in the form of ravens or a poor widow. To the poor, He comes with the richness of His heavenly reservoir. He feeds us better than the birds and the animals and dresses us better than the grass or the lilies. When we are lost in the thickets of life, He comes as the loving Shepherd to rescue us, put us on His shoulders and take us home with Him to be there with Him forever. Today let us appreciate His great purposes in allowing trials in our lives which makes us more and more like Him in our character. He helps us to respond to trials in grace. If He has given you a burden, give it back to Him gracefully and by faith, and He will carry it for you.
Romans 5:3 – But we also rejoice in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance.
Thought for Today
Trials are the exercises for us to develop our muscles of faith.
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