Week Two - Observation 5 and Wrap Up!

Excuse my tardiness!  We had a delayed "Happy Birthday" dinner last night for our two July birthday girls, Tamara and McKinzie.  By the time we got the patio cleaned up and did our new nightly regimen of medical care, I was just too tired to sit down and get my thoughts together in any kind of order that would make any kind of logical sense!  So, I decided to spend my time this morning with Robert still sleeping to sit right here on the patio and contemplate what we have read and thought about this week.  It's a beautiful morning that I first got to experience with an early morning walk with a new friend - that's a real blessing, isn't it?  Three blessings really: a beautiful morning with a glorious sky, the ability to move and walk freely (you don't realize what a blessing that is until you see it taken away from someone), and the company of a new friend!  I truly believe God places people in your life at specific times for specific reasons.  He makes life interesting that way, doesn't He?

We're finishing up Week Two - are you looking at living through difficult times any differently than you have before?  That's what we want to accomplish through this study.  I hope you're spending time really thinking through these Scriptures and allowing the Holy Spirit to make them come alive to you and speak to you in ways you haven't heard these same Scriptures before.  To me, that's the best part of Bible study, when you read through a passage that you may have read 100 times before, but all of a sudden you get tremendous new meaning from it, or you see something so clearly that you've never seen before.  That's when you know the Holy Spirit just blessed you with a little more Godly wisdom than you previously had, and you just lean back and smile.

Remember, our question this week is:  What is the purpose(s) of suffering in a believer's life and in what different ways can we suffer?

And our verse to memorize this week will be one that we probably already have a jump start on, but one that needs to be secure!  "But He said to me,  'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.'  Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may reside in me."  2 Corinthians 12:9

OBSERVATION

Romans 8:35-39  "Who can separate us from the love of Christ?  Can affliction or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  As it is written, 'Because of You we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.'  No, in all these things we are more than victorious through Him who loved us.  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!" 

Oh, don't you love this passage?  How reassuring these words are to us - no matter where we are, what is going on in our lives or what has gone on in our lives, we can K-N-O-W that God's love is available to us!

Look at all the possibilities of suffering that Paul lists:  affliction, anguish, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword...all different ways that the Christians of his time were undergoing difficulty.  And why?  Because of Jesus - because they were holding true to His name.  But Paul reassures them that through all of this, they will come out victorious; no, actually he says, "more than victorious" or as the NASB translates, "we overwhelmingly conquer."  

Quoting from the book, "Paul didn't merely survive his sufferings; he lived victoriously in the midst of difficult circumstances."   Isn't that what we want to do?  We don't want to just make it through, there's a sense of joy in victory, isn't there?  There's no bitterness, no wallowing in self-pity  - we're coming through life with all of it's uncertainties and hard times as true champions --- and all because of God's great love for us that enables us to persevere.  That love that we can have confidence in, no matter what, is there for us as believers in Jesus Christ.  WE ARE LOVED - nothing can change that, and when the hard times come, that is what we cling to; when the enemy throws the dart of doubt at us telling us that we shouldn't have to be going through whatever it is that we are going through, we say, "I AM STILL LOVED!  Nothing can separate me from the love of my God, my Father,"  

                                                    

OBSERVATION:

We need to be convinced of God's love for us prior to hard times so we can be 100% secure in it when those hard times come, and they will, in this broken world they are inevitable.  Say it now and say it often, "God loves me and nothing, nothing, NOTHING, can change that!"

WEEK TWO WRAP UP:

So the question this week was  what is the purpose(s) of suffering in a believer's life and in what different ways can we suffer?   Did we find purpose of suffering in the life of a believer?  In looking back over the days studies, I think we found several purposes:

I see that the threat of suffering can serve as a filter in the body of believers, the church, allowing the faithful to remain and for the body to be stronger than before.

I see that suffering can define our purpose in the Kingdom and make our role clearer than before.

I see that difficulties that are truly more than we can bear, force us to trust our God in a greater and more desperate way - "desperate dependence" - creating a deeper relationship of greater intimacy.

I see that difficulties and suffering expose our weakness in contrast to God's immense power.  We cannot, but He can and He does and He will make a way when there seems to be no way.  We rely on Him.

And through it all I see that God's love is not just something that I can be assured of when times are beautiful and rosy and all is well in my world; I can be just as assured of it when things are dark, dismal and oppressive.  God's love is not conditional on my circumstances; He has not withdrawn His love when things get tough.  His love abides - ALWAYS!  

Suffering can seem like punishment, but God uses difficulties and suffering to grow those who believe in Him - to mature us - to make us more like Christ.  When we trust in Him, we will not only get through our hard times, we will finish the race victoriously, as champions, with great big smiles on our faces!

In His Amazing Love,

Janice