“I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”
John 14: 6
12 “Look, I AM coming soon! My reward is with Me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. 13 I AM the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Revelation 22: 12-13
Pastors Noreen & Henry Kevern
Joy in the Trials
6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed
1 Peter 1:6-7
Smile, God loves you! No matter what you are going through today, smile because God loves you. Give Him praise in the house no matter how weary you may be. Thank Him for every situation you are in. Each thing that we go through, whether good or bad, happy or sad, gives us the opportunity to praise the LORD. It is all in how we perceive things that will determine the attitude that we have. Thank Him when things are going right and all is good in your world. In fact, just thank Him. You do not have to have a reason to thank Him; you do not need to bring to Him a long list of things. You just have to thank Him.
We all go through trials in our lives but each day is a new day and a new beginning. Maybe you are going through a divorce or you do not have a job. Maybe you are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Maybe you have you have lost someone and you do not know how to go on. Maybe life seems too hard and you want to die. You do not understand why God does not take all these things away. Why has He not provided the money to pay the bills? Your child has run away or is taken away. There are a million things that go wrong. It can feel as if the whole world is against you. You may be praying and not seeing any results from your prayers. It has been days, weeks, months and even years that go by and nothing has changed. You cry out, “Why, God? Do You even hear me?”
How we react to things depends on our attitude. We studied the “Be Attitudes” a few weeks back and learned that these are the attitudes we are to have in our situation in life. The whole Sermon on the Mount provides us with the way in which we are to live our lives. Life may be hard but God is holding you in the palm of His hand. But you say that nothing is changing and things are still going wrong. How can you possibly praise and thank God for the bad things that are happening? You cannot see beyond your self and you are caught up in your pain and sorrow that you cannot see the forest through the trees. All you can see is your pain and misery.
But there is hope. Psalm 42 tells us: As a deer pants for streams of water, so our souls thirst for You God in a dry and weary land. Do you pant for God’s Word? Do you thirst for God in your times of trials? Even when it seems as if all looks like it is falling apart; you can praise God and thank Him for this opportunity that suffering gives you as a time in order to show that your faith and trust in God is growing, even in the midst of the trial. You can pour out your soul to God. He is listening. He has not left you or forsook you. He is with you in everything that you go through. The Psalmist continues in the Psalm: Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Exactly why do we seem to become so depressed during these trials? It is these trials that cause my depression. I am losing my home; I am getting farther and farther into debt. I am hating the person who is causing me trouble; I am tired of trying to make ends meet. But there is always hope. Here these next words from Psalm 42: Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, My Savior and my God.
Hope is such a beautiful word. Emily Dickerson said: Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all. Hope is why we can endure. God gives us hope. Hope that the cancer has gone away. Hope that there is a better paying job. Hope that gives us peace in knowing that whatever we are going through, God is going through it with us. But wait a minute. If God is going through it with us, why does He not stop what is happening? In the times when I was physically, emotionally and sexually abused, I still knew God was with me. I cried out to Him and even in the times I could not feel His Presence, I still knew He was with me. When I tried to take my life at 15 and He stopped me, and told me that He would bring into my life that man who would look beyond my scars and marry me, I trusted in Him. And when my world turned upside down and Henry and I almost divorced, and when God told me to trust in Him and stay married; even when it was years of heartache and sorrow, trust returned between us and our marriage has become what God told me it would be. I needed to learn how to trust completely in God in my marriage. It was not up to me to change Henry, no, that was up to God. The only person I could change was me and my attitude. And even though 15 years went by and my depression continued to the point that I wanted to take my life again, God was there. I could not understand how finally my marriage was better and then Henry’s back went out and he could not walk, and he lost his job. But I did not trust God when He told me to trust in Him. I had decided to take a job even though God told me not to, but to trust in Him to provide. Nope, I decided I knew better than God. And even when Henry was able to walk again and found another job, I continued to work and 5 years went by. I started drinking, was on pills for my depression and I kept falling. Why God, were You not listening to me? Why are things not going right? So I finally quit the job but did everything fall into place? No, it sure did not. Seven years after Henry had his back go out, he had a series of hemorrhagic strokes that left him will so many gaps in his memory and he has trouble hearing as the background noise affects his ability to hear. He was fired from his job. We filed for disability and it took 3 years before he was approved. We lost our house and were homeless in our van. We prayed through all this and had finally learned to have hope and to praise God in our trials. Did all the things that were so hard go away? Nope, we still continue to have our share of trials. But God directed us in all these things and told us not to worry. It has taken me years but I have finally understood what Jesus meant in Matthew 6: DO NOT WORRY about your life, what you will eat or clothes to wear. I know what you need. Put ME first in your life and trust in ME and My promises. Do not worry about tomorrow, there will still be problems. But if you keep your eyes on Me I will give you what you need.
My attitude changed when I learned that no matter what I was and am going through at any moment that by trusting in God and keeping hope in my soul, I can do all things because God lives in me and is holding me in the palm of His hand.
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the Salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5) Yes, praise be to my Savior and my God. My inheritance is held for me and for you in heaven. Jesus told us He was leaving this world to go and prepare the place that we are going to; our new home, our forever home with God. Jesus took our sins that we deserved death for and nailed them to the cross with His life. He took away our sins and when we accept Jesus as our LORD and Savior, when we confess our sins and accept His gift of forgiveness; when we ask the Holy Spirit to come and live in us, we can have hope. Hope springs eternal and will give us the praise and thanksgiving that we are to have towards God and in God. Hope will change our attitude; hope will give us God’s joy because the joy of the LORD is our strength. Hope will allow us to trust in God no matter what is happening in our lives. And hope will teach us all that God is teaching. So make a joyful noise to the LORD. Praise His Holy Name. Remember that this world and all its problems will be changed, the old going away and the new heaven and new earth will be our forever home. We are here to learn from God what He wants us to learn: that God loves us and is always with us; that we are to be His hands and feet. That we are to love as He loves.
Hope is perched in our souls and 13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I AM holy.”[a] (1 Peter 1:13 – 16) Learn from Him and walk in His way, His truth and let the life He walked on earth, be the life you walk on earth. Jesus knew what lay before Him was the cross and He walked to it with arms wide open and died for you and me. Let us learn to walk in the way of the LORD in all areas of our lives, being ever changed into His holy nature of His Holy Spirit and overcome the desires of the flesh.
As we live, let us live in His joy and be filled with His strength. Let GOD purify us with the trials that come our way. Let us grow in our knowledge of GOD through His Word. 22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.[b] 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring Word of God. (1 Peter 1:22-23)
Believe in God, trust in God and above all else, obey God. Allow hope to surround you no matter what is going on. Decide to call on God in every situation and continue to praise Him in the storms. Step out in faith and learn to walk by faith.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6
