Tag Archives: Trust

Faith, Overcomers, Practicing His Presence, Stand Firm

Proven Faith

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“In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered” (Hebrews 5:7-8).

My study Bible’s footnote points out that Jesus, the Son of God and very God incarnate, “learned obedience through maturing and proving.”

The word “proving” reminded me of some things that God has been rolling around in my head with regard to Job and his suffering that has helped me to understand why suffering comes though there is no sin-cause. Do you realize that Job is reported to have been righteous in God’s opinion, and that it is God who pointed him out to Satan as an example of faith in the earth?

God allowed Job to be tested, not so Job could prove his faith: God already knew his faith; but so that God could prove his faith. When Job began to struggle under the load, that is when God stepped in, stopping the test, and giving instruction to Job for his maturity in righteousness. The hedge went back up as soon as God had proven to Satan the resolve of Job’s faith.

What load are you bearing that tests your faith? Realize that God knows your heart just as He did Job’s. Press forward with faith that proves what God sees in you, trusting with heart-knowledge that He will step in when the load becomes a burden, for “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Adequacy

AN Abundance

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“…And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed….” 2 Corinthians 9:6-15

“Do you believe this, Darlene? Then rest!” is the question and instruction that came to my heart this morning as I reread this scripture. “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.”

I am called upon again today to do something I feel very inadequate to do. As I seek the Lord to prepare to minister counsel to a friend who called me in distress last night, my own limits and weaknesses hit me in the heart this morning, and I cry out anew, “Father, I look to You …. I pray You, show me Your glory!”

Thus God faithfully responds as I read my focal passage this morning and am acutely aware anew that His grace and provision, sufficient for everything, is abundant for every good deed. All I need to is believe and receive.

Then my attention is drawn to where my spell checker underlines something it says may need correction. It is telling me to change “an abundance” to “abundance.” As far as sentence structure goes, they may be correct; but as I consider how God led the interpreters to write it, I realize the abundance He sends is very specific to our need. He does not necessarily send all abundance into our lives for all things. In fact, the promise here is “all SUFFICIENCY in everything” with “AN ABUNDANCE for every good deed.”

God sends all sufficiency in everything. He sends specific abundance in our time of need for every good deed. Thus I rest, trusting that God has very specific and timely supply for me as I seek to glorify Him in the life of this beloved one. You know, as I think on this truth, I can see how understanding and believing these things will keep me in contentment in whatever circumstance I find myself (Philippians 4:10-13).

“Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.” 1 Corinthians 9:26-27