Tuesday, August 12, 2008

TRANSFERED

Never forget that God is in control of all the circumstances that surround a believer’s life. God is in control of your life, and involved in all the details.

Your suffering has not escaped His notice. Your situation has not somehow been buried in His inbox. He is intimately aware of everything going on in your world, and no detail is too small to escape His attention. The word “oops” is not in God’s vocabulary.
And as we can so clearly see from the book of Job, the devil can do nothing in the life of the believer without the express permission of God.
Okay, you say, but if He’s in control, why does He allow these hurtful things to happen to me and to people I love?

One reason is Suffering makes us strong. I know what you are thinking, I don't like that either.
The apostle James tells us: “When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, my brothers, don’t treat them as intruders, but as friends. Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. . . . you will find you have become men of mature character, men of integrity, with no weak spots.” (James 1:2-4 phillips)

God allows hardship in our life so that our beliefs will become more real to us, and less theory. We can start living out our faith-life in the real world.
I’m reminded of all the people you see driving big SUVs. Most of these fancy rigs have 4x4 capabilities. Some guys take it a notch above that, buying those big gnarly tires, and mounting huge lights on top And what do they do with these powerful vehicles? They brag to their buddies, and say, “Yeah, just look at this thing. Look at what it can do. I could drive this baby up the side of a building.” Do you notice though that most of them never get the truck out in the dirt and mud so it can do what it was designed to do. They want it without spot or wrinkle. (that sounds kind of Biblical doesn't it) So they never want to actually use that vehicle for its intended purpose!!!

We can be that way with our beliefs. I can imagine God saying, “You know, you have a lot of really great beliefs. You talk about them all the time. I think it’s time you started putting some of them into practice. You talk about how you trust Me. You talk about how you believe I can provide for your every need. Let Me put you in a situation where you have no other resources and really have to trust Me for that provision.”
You see, God can allow these hardships and trials and shortfalls in our lives so that we will exercise our faith muscles, and step out on trust alone. We need to transfer our faith from the realm of theory to reality. Let the transfer begin. I will add another reason tomorrow as to why God will allow suffering.

Remember Sunday!! We begin the series, You want me to do WHAT?

You are the Head and not the Tail,

Pastor Kevin

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