On January 5th, 2017, Pastor Yang Hua of the Living Stone Church in Guiyang, China, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for “divulging state secrets.”
The voice came from the vicinity of where our dinner table is located, “Would you please come and hold this for me?” My wife was packing something away and needed another hand. So, to the rescue I came, not with one hand, but two and the task not able to be accomplished by one was easily taken care of. All she needed was someone to come alongside with another set of helping hands. Have we recently thought about the security and help we find in God’s hands? As we walk through this sin-cursed and treacherous world, no safer place exists than walking spiritually and by faith, hand in hand with the Lord Jesus.
How would you answer today’s nugget theme? You may respond along these lines; “My greatest privilege in life is being a Christian” or “My greatest privilege in life is knowing God.” And those are great Biblical answers, but I want us to go a little deeper. We may easily say, “My greatest privilege in life is being a Christian” and actually not be exercising that privilege. That isn’t a critical judgment. It is an assessment based on what Jesus said concerning end times, “And because lawlessness (sin) will be increased the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). All genuine Christians fight the battle to maintain first love for Jesus. There is a reason why the Christian life is called a “fight, a race, the narrow way, and difficult”.
A faith untested and untried is a faith which must not be trusted. It will fail every time the storms of life come. It will not stand the crashing waves of tough circumstances. It is of sand, not the solid rock of Christ and His Word, and will be washed away at the first sign of difficulty. And to ensure we have the type of faith which holds during trying times, God tests us. He tries His children with intense and severe tests. He told us so – “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10).
An amazing group of Christian families have chosen to stay in Aleppo to serve as a light for Christ in their destroyed city. While surrounded by the violence of civil war between rebel fighters and government forces, these courageous believers represent the peace that passes all understanding. Christians in Aleppo are determined that their city will be rebuilt with help from the body of Christ.
All of us want at least two things in the Christian life; spiritual growth in Christ and fruitfulness for Christ. And I would say we all want it fast; like now, like instantaneous, like immediate, like no waiting time. Nothing wrong with these desires. In fact, something would be really wrong if these desires were lacking in our lives. But here is where we often struggle. When we are going through tough times in life and don’t understand what God is doing, we find great comfort in these familiar verses found in Isaiah 55:8-9. These verses also apply in the process of God refining us into the image of His Son or spiritually growing us.