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Gleanings From The Word

Tag: hope

  • Tribulation Produces Perseverance

    Tribulation Produces Perseverance

    perseverance- you dont always see what's happening

    I have a scar on my right hand from a job I worked in my twenties. I will not bore you with the details, but the short version is that I did something careless, something sharp moved faster than I expected, and the rest is biology. What I remember most is not the moment it happened. It is the weeks after, when the wound was closing but not closed, when it itched in a way that made you want to crawl out of your skin, and when the doctor told me that the itching was the tissue knitting itself back together.

    The discomfort was the healing.

    I have thought about that a lot over the years, because it is a remarkably accurate picture of what God does with suffering and our times of waiting.

    Paul does not tiptoe around this. We also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance, and perseverance, proven character, and proven character, hope (Romans 5:3-4).

    Read that slowly, because it is easy to skim past what Paul is actually claiming. He is not saying suffering is fine because it will be over eventually. He is saying suffering produces something. Actively. Right now. In you. The tribulation is not an interruption to your growth. It is the means of it. The gap is where God does His best work.

    That is not how we usually feel about the hard seasons. We forget that tribulation produces perseverance.

    We feel like we are falling behind. Like everyone else is moving and we are stuck. Like God has either forgotten where He put us or decided we can handle more than we actually can. The gap between where we are and where we thought we would be by now can feel less like a workshop and more like a waiting room with no magazines and no news on when your name will be called.

    But here is what Scripture will not let us do. It will not let us call that gap wasted time.

    Hebrews 12 puts it plainly. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith(Hebrews 12:1-2).

    Two things in that passage that are worth sitting with. First, the race is set before us — not chosen by us, not designed to our preferences, not adjusted for our comfort level. It is set. Second, endurance is not something you summon from inside yourself. You run it with your eyes fixed on Someone outside yourself. The moment you look away from Him and start measuring the distance you have left, the legs go.

    Perseverance, in Scripture, is not optimism. It is not telling yourself it will get better and pressing on with clenched teeth. It is obedience in the dark. It is continuing to do the next right thing when you cannot see what it is producing, because you trust the One who can.

    James says it this way. Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:2-4).

    Perfect and complete. That is the finish line. Not comfortable. Not unscathed. Complete.

    The gap between who you are and who God is making you is not evidence that something has gone wrong. It is evidence that something is still going on. The wound is still closing. The tissue is still knitting. The discomfort you are feeling right now may be exactly that — the feeling of becoming.

    I will not tell you the hard season you are in is easy, or that it is short, or that you will understand it on this side of eternity. I cannot promise any of those things, and I would not insult you by trying.

    What I can tell you is what Scripture says. That it is not random. That God wastes nothing. That the same Jesus who is the author of your faith is also its perfecter, and He does not start things He does not intend to finish. Tribulation produces perseverance

    Keep going. Not because you can see the end. Because He can.

    Be blessed,

    Kevin

    Tim Challies – we’re not affiliated  but you might enjoy his writing

    Some thoughts on finding a good church

    Find a good church

    Live in Abbotsford? There are many good churches. This is where I attend.

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    Sanctification – there is a purpose in the process

  • Purpose in the Process: Why God Takes His Time with Sanctification

    a narrow trail atop a mountain stretching as far as the eye can see - the long road to holiness

    I’m not a big fan of process; I like instant results. Unfortunately, God’s timing seems a process to us. It’s a long, narrow road that isn’t always easy to follow. 

    Becoming a Christian is quick and simple. When we become believers, our sins are forgiven, the Holy Spirit moves in, we are justified and have the imputed righteousness of Christ.

    Becoming Christ-like, that is, the process of sanctification, is a lifelong process. It’s the day-by-day, moment-by-moment choices that lead us to be made like Jesus. 

    One source describes it this way: “Sanctification is the process by which believers are set apart for God’s purposes and are progressively transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ. It is a work of God’s grace that begins at the moment of salvation and continues throughout the believer’s life. Sanctification involves both a definitive aspect, where believers are positionally sanctified in Christ, and a progressive aspect, where they grow in holiness and obedience.”

    It’s easy to get frustrated along the way and quit. We face the challenges of temptation and sin. Sometimes, it’s just plain hard work, and progress seems slow.

    C. S. Lewis wrote about the student who is tempted to quit his Bible reading because he hasn’t been perfectly consistent with it:

    “No, he doesn’t quit. You don’t expect to see a drastic change overnight. But he continues to work at it. Some days he misses. Occasionally, he makes sinful choices that really set him back. But he stumbles along, developing the skill of Bible reading and getting better and better at it. After a week nothing looks that different. After a month, you can kind of tell. After a semester, there’s noticeable change. After 5 years, he’s unrecognizable. Have you been struggling? Are you tempted to give up? Don’t do it. Get back and try it again. Little by little, “you are turning the central part of you…into something a little different from what it was before” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

    There must be a purpose in the process, or God would have just skipped it altogether. His goal in the process is laid out clearly in Paul’s writings.

    And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers; and those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified. Romans 8:28-30

    It can be a long journey. It’s going to take our entire life to get there. When we do arrive, what a time that will be. We will have been fully sanctified – set apart for God, made Christ-like, and be ready for life ever after with the one who loved us enough to die for us.

    Press on, my weary companions. Keep your eye on the prize. When you fall, get back up.

    It will be worth every moment of struggle, hardship and effort.

    Hallelu Yah (Praise God) 

    Kevin 

    You might also like “Profound Change: The Journey to New Creation“

    SUMMARY

    Salvation happens in a moment, but becoming Christ-like is a lifelong process of sanctification that God uses purposefully to conform us to the image of His Son. Though the journey is slow and hard, it is worth every struggle — press on.

    TAKEAWAY

     Justification is instantaneous; sanctification is progressive and lifelong 

    God has a purpose in the process — conforming believers to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-30) 

    Falling short is not the end; the call is to get back up and keep pressing forward.

    You might also enjoy, “Right belief must become right living.”