Greetings!
Have you wondered if God understands your problems?
“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
(Rom 8:28)
I often wonder
why I cannot just read a verse and be blessed by it. No…I have to slice it, dice it, and petulantly get on edge over it. Honestly, I don’t experience inner discovery until I let it front my flesh. In fact, I have a strange method in my Scripture study habits. After I ask the Lord what He has in store for me, and after I slice it up in the Greek or Hebrew, I do something really weird. I write the verse opposite of its organic intent. For example, I would write the above verse in this manner.
And we certainly know and believe that God doesn’t cause all things to work together for good or else you wouldn’t feel the way you do. If you can read, you can see that this only applies to those who love Him. For we know you’re not consistent in loving Him. Any minister of God knows that those who are called according to His purposes should be without hypocrisy. How about you, are you free of hypocrisy?
Honestly, this helps me
gain a glimpse of how my flesh tends to interpret or deny the Holy Scriptures, and minimally, it reveals the tactic the enemy uses to deflate me.
This passage happens to be one of those verses the enemy uses against me. My flesh is always curious as to why God allows constant problems in my life. Here are a few lessons I have been positioned to embrace over the years.
Did you know that indwelt believers need problems?
First, I finally accept the fact
“the
rain falls on the just and the unjust.”
Secondly, God allows problems or trials in our lives to bring us the end of our self-life or minimally an issue we are being selfish. God has a purpose for all conflict and difficulties – it is certain to lead us to the inward life of Christ. For the unsaved, it could lead them to the great exchange – salvation.
Problems tend to steal our rest
in Christ unless we use the problems to adopt His rest. This is accomplished through the mind of Christ – with the corporeality of all things DO work together for the good.
Coming from a man who has spent many years avoiding problems, this lesson has become so personal, that it has formed in me a belief that all trials that I encounter are the gateway of the testing of my faith.
“Consider it all joy, my brethren, 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)
Here is my weird oppositional comparison.
Consider it depressing, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces more problems. And always remember, you have a bad track record enduring hardship, so don’t expect perfect results. Only the ignorant believe you can be perfect and complete on this earth. By the way, have you ever been content with being or having nothing? Of course not. You always want more.
My wife tells me I am her example
of enduring all things. I usually laugh. Then I am reminded that I endure in order to share my story with others. Not because I enjoy the process but because I have been “forced” through circumstances to discover the perfection of Christ in me. I wish I could say that I have allowed His perfect results in me to be my daily experience but I cannot. I can say that His mission to accomplish such great perfection is at work in me daily. To embrace the fullness of this positional revelation in my ongoing hope as I allow the release of Christ in me (corporeal) to accomplish such work is my personal mission.
Many believers fight this process and don’t seem to understand that God uses all things – good and bad, to bring us the Cross for full surrender. Romans 8:28 clearly reveals these truths – God uses all that happens to us to bring about His eternal purposes. He uses both desirable things and difficult things to bring us to the end of fleshly passions.
Christ’s life within us is the wonderful result of us dying on the Cross with Him.
God, through Christ, allows WHAT we go through; to choose HOW we go through it. Detours can be set in place by our flesh, as well by those who claim to love us. We can set up our own detours in an attempt to avoid the inevitable, being brought to the Cross. Every situation, even by our foolish choices, God has the power and prerogative to use them to draw us to Christ inwardly or if not saved, to the Cross for the first time – Salvation. These detours, or escape routes, may look good to our tainted flesh, appear to protect us from harm but the greater value is what the Lord wants to accomplish. As my old friend says –
“Don’t try to fix the fix that God has fixed on you to fix you from fixing self, others, and God.”
This is what I call “My Own Abiding Life.”
Problems can cause us to become bitter or better while motivating our flesh to become our own abiding life. This elusive ideology challenges us to go against our fears and instead, choose to trust God. As a discipler, I have come to realize that most self-proclaimed Christians cannot discern the difference between self-life abiding and the Abiding Life of Christ. In fact, most think they are of the same nature.
When we turn our focus
away from the circumstances and focus our mind on Christ's mind within us, victory is sure to come. The authentic Abiding Life is certain to be released. Seeing God’s purpose is more important than solving the situation that rubs against self-indulgent morbid flesh. God is sovereign, so it would behoove us to stop arguing and allow Him to abide in and through our problems. Trusting in His sovereign plan requires us NOT to base our decisions on feelings, historical trauma, or fears but on the reliable character of our loving Father. Here is our decisive question. Do we really thank, trust, and obey Him as He leads us to contentment and fulfillment? For most of us, that would be a “no.” Fact. Problems are ordained to lead us to the Cross - either for surrender (as indwelt believers) or for those unsaved – for Salvation.
The Lord tells us in Matthew 5:37:
"But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no';
anything beyond these is of evil
.”
Victorious living is first based upon the Victor that indwells us. Secondly, it is cemented in our choice of the “yes.” Above all, God knows that people who are of the “yes” are easily managed and grown. He also knows that people of the “no” can be disciplined and brought back to a “yes.” This, of course, is done through the downward process involved in brokenness or being brought to the end of ourselves. But people who are indecisive and won’t respond with a “yes” or “no” fall into a category that Christ Himself calls evil. Do you need to read that statement again? This is classically what forms a passive evil pluralistic society in the world and the church as a whole. Our Post-Truth lukewarm church was birthed through this complacent place, a place bathed in evil. Anytime you cannot nail a person down with absolute Truth, they’re confessing they aren’t living in Truth. Truth never denies itself. They are protecting evil. It is important to remember the obvious. Any indecisive decision is always a decisive “no.”
The good news,
the more “yes’s” an authentic believer makes, the further he walks into a lifestyle of RIGHTEOUSNESS. The more “no’s” made, the further he walks into a lifestyle of UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. The more indecisive (middle of the road) decisions made, the apter the “believer” will become lukewarm – in doctrines & lifestyle. The KEY is to repent when under conviction of a “no” or middle of the road decisions, accept the consequences, make a u-turn, then decide yes on a “yes” decision. Repeat this method until the “yes” forms a new lifestyle of obedience.
This is my summary of the “why” God allows problems. With the view stated in this commentary, our problems become our greatest blessing – if embraced through Christ.
Critical note.
If by some chance you are not indwelt by Christ (saved), you have zero chances of being successful in this admonishment. Zero! Unsaved people cannot be a people of the “yes” unless they become born-again and indwelt by the YES. In saying that, your first “yes” would need to be a response to the upward calling of Christ by receiving Him into your life. Only then can you have the power to be decisive in Christ.
Being our own abiding life is not only a misnomer, but it is also the devil's most practical illusion to deceive a goat (unsaved) or a sheep (authentic believer). It will perpetuate a lifestyle of “looking” like a functional authentic believer, while it brings glory to self and Satan. To that, I say, “Ouch!”
Slowly, but most assuredly
, I am discovering just how clever the devil really is. Fighting against God by resisting or fixing problems become the enemy’s method of advancing his own agenda. Oddly enough, that agenda advances ourselves.
