HOW TO COME FORTH AS GOLD?

By:  K. Hee

Our God is a good, compassionate, and merciful God. It is not His will for us to experience evil or pain. Yet, He does permit trials and challenges in our lives. And when we go through suffering, it is an opportunity for our faith to mature and grow so that we can endure to the end like our Lord Jesus did.

The reward for enduring for Christ is that we will spend eternity with Him and that we will see many others come to faith in Him too!

 

As Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2:10-13, “Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. This is a faithful saying:  For …

If we died with Him, we shall also live with Him.
If we endure, we shall also reign with Him.
If we deny Him, He also will deny us.
If we are faithless, He remains faithful;
He cannot deny Himself.”

The bible tells us that times of tribulation are inevitable in our lives (John 16:33). But Jesus’ work of sacrifice and victory has given us the keys to overcome! Will we still allow suffering to take us down? Or will we recognize God’s unfailing love and purpose in every difficult situation, and use the opportunity to refine our faith and perfect our love for Jesus?

Let’s commit to having the same mind of Job, who said in the midst of his suffering: “When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:10)!

Prayer for the day: 

Thank God for caring and loving you so much that He is willing to teach you hard lessons through your times of suffering, as a father teaches his child. Thank Him for refining your faith, so that it can endure for eternity!