Have you yet come to the place where you realize that your worst days have conversely turned out to be your best days; and when God seemed to be cruel that He was truly being most kind?
If we turn to God in our times of affliction, we will truly experience God’s richest and most tender mercies. Trials or afflictions come in all shapes and sizes but as we believe in Jesus Christ, we claim His promise to us that all things work together for our good because we love Him. (Romans 8:28)
But in truth, the reality of trials and afflictions can taint our senses so that we doubt the goodness of God because it hurts so much! Whether it be bodily afflictions or emotional pain we must be confident, as believers, that God has begun a good work in us and that He will continue that good work until the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)
When we experience darkness we must not forget what God has taught us in the light.
The object in this commentary is to search out the reasons why we experience these times of darkness. When we grasp the understanding of how God is working ‘within us’ ... we will be better able to cope with the trials and glorify God in them when they do come.
There are five basic reasons that afflictions are allowed to touch our lives; only one of these reasons is because of sin.
Job’s friends only focused in on the possibility that Job’s trials and afflictions were because he had sinned, but God’s Word says, “...the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, ‘My wrath is kindled against thee, and against your two friends: for you have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7)
God’s ways and God’s reasons are those of a FAITHFUL, HOLY FATHER who only allows circumstances in the lives of HIS children that will mature us and bring glory and honor to His Name.
“For MY thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways MY ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and MY thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)
We each know when our trials and afflictions are because of sin. We also know, if we choose to sin willfully, we can expect to pay the consequences for our actions. (see Hebrews 10:26-27)
But, we must always remember that our Omniscient-all seeing God sees all that we do and think and He deals with His children on a much more intimate level than those who have not received salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. The ‘Fatherhood’ of our great God is evidenced in the fact that HE is faithful to ‘perfect’ or mature HIS kids.
The second reason we experience trials and afflictions is to vindicate the character of God in front of an unbelieving world. In other words, God is trusting us with HIS reputation. God entrusted Job... "And the LORD said unto Satan, ‘Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that fears God, and hates evil?”
After all the beginning calamities occurred in Job’s life, this statement is made: “In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.” Job knew his Creator and understood whatever God had given to him, God had the right to take away. In this situation, Job blessed the name of the LORD in his personal trial by falling down upon the ground and WORSHIPPING God. (Job 1:20-22)
The apostle Paul also expressed this truth: “For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and the angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are honorable, but we are despised.” I Corinthians 4:9-10
God entrusts His reputation with His kids; we represent God as witnesses. “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” Hebrews 12:1
The third reason why we suffer affliction is to improve our character. OUCH! Yes, we are all characters that need improvement! Our Heavenly Father, through our trials, is in the process of conforming us into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the end, God will present us in eternity without spot or blemish. Even in the confusion that afflictions bring, Job understood this truth, “But HE knows the way that I take: when HE has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”
Also, as you read the full context of I Peter 1:2-9 you will see it beginning with the words “elect according to the foreknowledge of God’ and ending with ‘receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.”
James 1:2-4 also expresses this same thought, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations: knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire (mature and complete), wanting (or lacking) nothing.”
When we are in the midst of a trial we hate it when someone quotes Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to HIS purpose” But, if we can grasp the truth of the verses that follow, we will be able, like Job, to say; “...when HE has tried me, I shall come forth as gold”
The following verses in Romans 8:29-31 read: “For whom He did foreknow, HE also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?” So in all this we see that the trials are to improve our character, purifying and maturing us. They are being used to conform us to the image of Christ.
The fourth reason that afflictions come across our paths is for us to forget ourselves and to pray for others, being able to give a word of comfort to them in their trial because we have already experienced the victory. “And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends; also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.” Job 42:10
II Corinthians 1:3-7 also paints for us the same picture. “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so shall you be also of the consolation.”
These verses carry much truth that many believers either miss or overlook. Jesus Christ
suffered so that we may have eternal life. We also are called to suffer so that others may come to believe in the 'salvation' that we have experienced. As we receive consolation and comfort, we are called to reach out and comfort others in their sufferings.
The ‘fire’ of trials burn away the things in our lives that do not bring glory to the Kingdom of God. The things of the flesh must be purged from our hearts and lives. “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.” I Peter 4:1-2
The desired result is for us to do the will of God in every circumstance.
The fifth and final reason that afflictions come to us is for us to forget our opinions and to trust God only, abhorring ourselves, making ourselves humble in front of an Almighty, Holy God.
At the end of Job’s trials he makes this statement: “Then Job answered the LORD, and said, ‘I know that You can do everything, and that no thought can be with held from THEE. Who is he that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. (YOU said) ‘Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.’ I have heard of THEE by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye sees THEE. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job finally had come to the end of himself, forgetting his own opinions and conclusions, and humbled himself before God, abhoring himself. It is only after Job repented that God turned his life around. Job thought that he knew God, but the trials opened his eyes to the real character of his Heavenly Creator.
Following are some verses for you to ponder from Psalm 119.
Verse 67: “Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept THY Word.”
Verse 71 “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn THY Statutes.”
Verse 75 “I know, O LORD, that THY Judgments are right, and that THOU in faithfulness hast afflicted me.”
Verse 92 “Unless THY Law had been my delights, I should then have perished in mine affliction.”
Brothers and sisters, we must bury the WORD OF GOD in our hearts and keep God’s precepts ever before us. We must never loose sight of the goodness and the love of God for us, HIS children, and that He is a Father that lovingly teaches us, bringing us to a maturity that glorifies HIMSELF. God does not reveal HIS design to us, but HE does reveal HIMSELF to us and desires for us to reflect HIM to the world around us.
Our enemy can cause us to doubt the goodness of our Heavenly Father if we do not keep these precepts ever before us. Nothing can separate us from God's love. “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our LORD.” Romans 8:37-39
Be encouraged and keep steadfast in the Word of God...knowing that all these trials are designed by our faithful Father to bring us to GLORY.
“Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than that of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” I Peter 1:6-7
