from Pleasant Grove Baptist Church https://ift.tt/2HLFlNS
via IFTTT Born into 40 years of misery, for the glory of God. Are you willing? Consider this man. 40 years old, his life as a lowly begger unable to walk or work. Unable to have a family, unable to care for himself because of his physical deformity. Every day spent sitting at the mercy of others for a speck of bread, no hope for the future. What a sad existence, right? NO! How selfish are we to say so! This man was mightily used of God, blessed and honored. His story is written into two chapters of the Bible, surviving 2000 years! His story has provided encouragement to millions, even billions of people worldwide. And all he had to do was to spend the first half of his life as a begger. Man is so incredibly selfish, we seek the miracle without the pain of a need for a miracle. How is that? How can we have an amazing testimony of rescue without a need for miraculous rescue? How do we feel pleasure without the capacity to feel pain? This man was born for the moment that he rose by the name of Jesus. Was it worth it? Would you volunteer to be like him? Abraham received a mighty promise, that a nation would be built of his offspring, a nation that would bless the world and mankind like no other. A nation that gave birth to our saviour , finally correcting the mistake of Adam in the garden. BUT, God proclaimed that this nation would first spend 400 years as slaves in a foreign land, mercilessly oppressed and beaten. Wait, what? Slaves for 400 years? Who is going to sign up for that? Who is willing to say "thy will he done, not mine" if it means a life of harsh slavery? Who? A true follower of Christ,, that's who. If we are not willing to be the slave, we are not worthy of walking into the promised Land. I know, this is hard teaching. We don't want to be slaves. Jesus came to set us free, to bring peace and love and success to all. Did He? Not exactly. He came to pay for our sins so that we may be free from the bondage of sin, and DIE to self, be persecuted by the world, be spit on, ridiculed, attacked, even killed for standing for truth. The Christian Life is one of incredible inward peace and joy during unspeakable outward attacks and misery. Sometimes our place, our call from God is to be the slave for 400 years, the lame begger for 40 years. Are we to say " no, not me Lord"? This man was mightily blessed to be born lame for 40 years and then healed in the right moment as a testament to Jesus' resurrection. Every Jewish slave in Egypt was mightily blessed to be working out God's plan for His new nation. This may seem foreign to our way of thinking, but not God's. "In everything give thanks" means... Yes... Everything. Slave or free. Lame or whole. Give thanks and find peace in knowing we are living God's will for us. Perhaps there is a day of release for us, perhaps a day of healing, or perhaps not. God is still god and worthy to be praised regardless of our circumstances. So give thanks, while in your situation, good or bad. Because all things are good when you serve the living God. All things. Not just the pleasant ones, but the harsh ones too. All. Give thanks, and trust. God is sovereign. He knows what He is doing.
