Persevering to victory

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. Matthew 19: 29

I was reading something that Joyce Meyer wrote about the difficulties she experienced in the early days of her ministry and how glad she is that she persevered and did not give up. I think we would all say ‘Amen’ to that as the Church would be a poorer place without her ministry and practical encouragement to us all.

The Scripture she quoted was the one above and I remember how relevant that was in our early Christian walk.  God called us to leave the church we were going to and join a new church where we knew hardly anyone. I remember grumbling and complaining to God about this and why was it all so hard and God reminded me of this verse.

Nearly 30 years later I can smile as it all seems so silly now. The things that were so hard then are not hard now and God has been so faithful because as we have faced harder and harder trials somehow things have got easier and easier which sounds so unlikely. However as I think about it with each and every trial that we face we have to draw closer to God and depend on him more and more. As we do that it makes the whole of our life easier because of the greater dependence and trust we have built into our lives.

However the converse is also true.  Imagine Joyce Meyer had given up when things were so hard or imagine we had not been obedient to God and stayed at the church where it was all so much easier. Today we would not have the blessing of Joyce’s ministry and we might still be living compromised lives in the church we were going to having things easy but unfulfilling at one level but not knowing the joy and satisfaction of having pushed through to greater heights in our walk with God.

I marvel that any of us have survived some of the spiritual lows and difficulties that God has taken us through but it is so true that there is nothing we go through where God is not with us every step of the way, holding our hands, encouraging and strengthening us and whispering to us all the time, ‘Don’t give up.’  Jesus showed us that the Christian life may not be easy but it is always worth it. If Jesus could ‘for the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.’ Hebrews 12:2 we too can endure our difficulties so we too rise triumphant to greater glories for him.

Be strengthened if you are facing trials and difficulties and remember it is worth it and if you are in an easier time, thank God and rejoice in his faithfulness and love.

Man does not live on bread alone

‘Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’ Luke 4:4

Jesus quoted this Scripture from Deuteronomy when the devil tempted him to turn a stone into bread.  Jesus had been in the desert for 40 days and nights and was hungry and the devil came and attacked him at his weak point.  When the devil said, ‘If you are the Son of God …’ he was not casting doubt on Jesus’ divinity but tempting Jesus to use his divinity to feed himself. He was in effect saying; ‘since you are the Son of God …’ feed yourself.  You’re hungry, you can do it and of course Jesus could. 

Jesus knew that using his divinity to feed himself would have aborted God’s plan of salvation for mankind before it had started.  So he came back at the devil by quoting from the Scriptures – a powerful weapon against the enemy.  It is truth and the devil hates truth as he is the father of lies. Jesus knew that everything we need comes from God and we look to him and him alone to be our provider.

Jesus was quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3 where Moses was telling the Israelites that God had humbled them in the desert by causing them to go hungry.  The Israelites were very prone to self sufficiency and making their own minds up about what they would and wouldn’t do. Hungry in the desert where there was no food, they had no choice but to cry out to God who supernaturally provided for them with manna. Manna of course means, ‘what is it?’ The Israelites had never seen anything like it before and would be in no doubt for the next 40 years as the manna arrived morning and evening, except on the Sabbath, no matter where they were in the desert, that it was God who provided.  They couldn’t look to their own resources; they had to look to God and truly learn that, ‘man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’

Like the Israelites, we too have an in-built desire for self sufficiency but God desires us to be dependent on him.  As we truly learn to look to God to be all we need and to provide all we need, it will bring us into greater liberty than we could ever know.  It won’t make us feeble, unable-to–think for ourselves people but powerful children of God. Once God is our provider all the barriers to possibility are down.  We have limited resources and limited abilities in ourselves but God can and will provide everything we need from our daily bread to the very air we breathe. Ask God to help you change your mind set from self sufficiency to God dependency and come into the freedom that God wants you to walk in.