John 16:33 (KJV)
33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
Some say that God puts His children in difficult situations of life in order to mature or teach them a lesson. The truth is, our decisions and our associations to a fallen world bring us into difficult circumstances of life; whereas, God gives us His Word to combat the natural outcomes: to become more favorable spiritually. This fallen world and its demons attack or oppose that Word in us, thus making us feel like God is testing us! However, if we study the Word in the correct context to which it was written without embellishing upon its meaning in order to fit our wrong beliefs; we will discover emphatically that God is not a designer of the tragic things in this world that are often associated to Him and thereby still remain in His true character.
Our Lord has just revealed to us how to have peace, stay in Me. Then He qualified that while we are yet in this world there would be tribulations of all sorts. However, He said to be of good cheer regardless of what may come your way. Why? It is because He has overcome the world, which ensures that in Him we can have peace in our storms of life and a knowing that we too will overcome the trials if we remain in Him. The Word of God tells us that the heart and mind that stays on the Lord will have perfect peace (Isaiah 26:3). Again, we find that the Scriptures tell us not to trust our own understanding if we want this peace in our lives (Philippians 4:7; Proverbs 3:5). Our God has provided the foundation to which we can build on and have good success even when life throws a curve ball at you. Look with me over in the book of Acts and you will see what I mean.
Acts 14:22 (KJV)
22 Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.
Here we find the apostle Paul had earlier been stoned by some certain Jews for preaching on Christ and supposing to be dead they dropped him off outside the city of Lystra. Yet, if you read this you will find that Paul picked himself up after being stoned near to death and headed to Derbe to preach there the message of Christ. When Paul had accomplished his endeavors to preach to that city, he said let us return back to Lystra and comfort the souls of those disciples there and remind them that in this life there will be great tribulations for living this faith openly. Paul added that we will enter the kingdom of God through many trials. These trials to which Paul spoke of were not the self inflicted troubles that many create through choosing to live for themselves; but rather they are the afflictions for following Christ. When the Word abides in us and we abide in it, there will be an all out war to lift those Words from our life. Why? Obviously, it is because of the potential of what those Words can produce in a believer's life. Look at something else with me before we move to our final text.
2 Peter 2:7-9 (AMP)
7 And He rescued righteous Lot, greatly worn out and distressed by the wanton ways of the ungodly and lawless-
8 For that just man, living [there] among them, tortured his righteous soul every day with what he saw and heard of [their] unlawful and wicked deeds-
9 Now if [all these things are true, then be sure] the Lord knows how to rescue the godly out of temptations and trials, and how to keep the ungodly under chastisement until the day of judgment and doom,
I wanted to provide this passage of Scripture in order to help you understand just how this wicked world has a way of afflicting our righteous souls through being presently around the filth that we are taking in through our eye and ear gate of the mind. I have watched more troubles afflict the lives of fellow believers because of the constant associations that they willingly spend time around. Don't ever under-estimate the power of influence that the fallen nature can produce over you when you are spending time among the evil lifestyles of others. The Bible teaches, how can light and darkness have fellowship together? The answer of course is they can't abide in the same place. Thankfully the Lord is capable of delivering the godly out of their tribulations of life. Now I want us to look at something that is strange sounding to the natural ear. As a matter of fact, these words are meant to be heard by our spiritual ears if we are to make sense out of it.
James 1:2 (KJV)
2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into various temptations;
What? Is this saying that I am to express the emotion of joyfulness within my troubles? That is exactly what it is saying here, as long as we are talking about troubles that occur because of our allegiance to Christ. You can't be truly joyful while professing to be a child of God when you deliberately do things that are anti-Christ in their nature; and then when punishment comes because of that disobedience you get mad at God for allowing it to happen in the first place.
1 Peter 2:20-21 (MSG)
20 There's no particular virtue in accepting punishment that you well deserve. But if you're treated badly for good behavior and continue in spite of it to be a good servant, that is what counts with God.
21 This is the kind of life you've been invited into, the kind of life Christ lived. He suffered everything that came his way so you would know that it could be done, and also know how to do it, step-by-step.
I realize that this can sound pretty much like we are promoting the idea of living under a life of pain and suffering intentionally; this is because everyone wants the promised "abundant life" that Jesus came to bring us, right? I can't help but point out something of significance here that Jesus said to us.
John 15:18-20 (KJV) 18 If the world hates you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you; the servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. I don't want to spend too much time here on the obvious position we are thrust into as we fail to be consistent followers of Christ. However, because we are talking about tribulations in this devotional, I needed to point out that there are trials that we bring upon ourselves to which has no divine virtues that make it worth rejoicing over. If these are the difficulties you are facing then you need to ask for wisdom so as to turn from these self-afflicted troubles from your life and get the victory over them. Can you imagine anything sadder than a forty-year-old man who is still fighting the temptation to steal change from his daddy's dresser or swipe a cookie from his mama's cookie jar? But this is exactly where a lot of Christians are in their lives. They aren't passing the spiritual inspections to locate their faith in order to get the victory, so they are stuck in kindergarten, spiritually speaking. But there is hope:
James 1:5 (KJV) 5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that gives to all men liberally, and rebuke it not; and it shall be given him.
We need to understand a few things about trials so we don't throw the blame upon God as being the One who causes it in order that we learn something valuable. As I have stated many times over the years of ministering, God would have us learn from His Word, not through our reaping of harsh things because of bad choices that we make. There are at least two things that I can point to that can have adverse affect on our lives when we don't understand the true reason of why we find ourselves being assaulted. The first is obviously unbelief to what the Word teaches [my people perish for lack of knowledge; it is impossible to please God without faith]; secondly, there is an adversary who craftily creates in us a sense [from doctrines of devils; wrong theology] that God is testing us through some trial that we are facing. However, the Word of God within us is actually the object of the initial attack by our adversary the devil to which has been mounted against us. Whereas, the Word of God in us, is there to locate that measure of faith that we have all received when we were born again, and place it on a divine activity that will motivate us act.
Speaking of the proper motivation, I heard about a man who was walking home late one chilly, rainy night. He was so tired and cold that he decided to take a shortcut through the town cemetery. Unfortunately, he didn't see an open grave and fell headlong into the hole. He panicked, clawing at the sides of the grave and hollering for help. But after a while it became apparent that no one was around, and he couldn't get enough of a grip to climb out. He was so exhausted that he huddled down in one side of the dark grave and fell asleep. As it turned out, another man was walking through the cemetery in the wee hours of the morning. He also fell into the open grave and, like the first man, began yelling for help and trying to climb out. His shouts woke the first man, who was hidden from sight in the darkness. The first man reached out, laid a cold, clammy hand on the second man's shoulder, and said, "Forget it, brother. You'll never make it. I've been trying to get out of here for hours." The second man made it! It's obvious with the right kind of motivation from God's Word people we will respond favorably; but the same can be said about the hardships of life, they too have a way of motivating us as well, but they are not God's choice for us.
Now I realize there are many who will draw a parallel of the story of Job as being a valid reason for seeing God as the Author and Finisher of our trials instead of our faith for the logical use of growing us up as so many promote in Christendom. Doesn't it say that God and the devil conversed a few times about Job and how he had it easy because there was no opposition in his life? Then what happens? The devil suggests a few ideas to "challenge" his allegiance to God by using extreme circumstances and it appears God went along with it. I wish to point out that things were great for Job in his life because he simply worshipped God faithfully and adhered to His Word continually. Do not lose sight to the fact that Job was in a fallen world where the devil possessed the rightful dominion over it. Adam had surrendered it in the Garden of Eden, remember? Therefore, because Job served his God and obeyed His Word under the Old order, the devil was unable stop its blessing over Job's life. So, what does the devil do? He challenges God, which he declares Job will give up on Him if He would take His divine protection off of Job even though he trusted in God's Word. This was not God being duped into a battle by the devil at the expense of humans.
Death and troubles was just as much a part of Job's world as ours. There were obviously trials upon the face of the earth in Job's day as it is in ours. When I began to look at this closely I realized it was not Job who the devil had in his sites, it was the Word of God to which insulated Job who had placed his trust in it. Job did this faithfully, therefore the devil wanted to get him to give up on it and rid the world once and for all of its potential power that could stop the devil's lordship over the earth. Remember the Scriptures tell us that Job's children were hanging out and having a little party with possible sin in the mix of it; and Job thought in case they have done something against the Lord their God he made intercession for them.
Job 1:4-5 (KJV)
4 And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.
5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.
Obviously, this gives us indication that Job's prayers availed much on behalf of his children and is the reason why he prospered as such. The idea that God is the cause of trials in our lives is a lame excuse in light of what the Word teaches. The devil knew that even though he was the god of this world he could not penetrate those who trusted in God's Word. As you probably know because of being familar with this story, the devil suddenly took away the lives of Job's children, his stock and all that he had; yet he could not destroy Job's life because would not allow it. Needless to say, our story reveals how God restored everything that Job had lost over the period to which the devil came to steal that Word out of Job's heart and which he would not give up on. This is a timely lesson; for there are so many who have been tried, and have assumed that God is the one who was doing it. My friends, that couldn't be further from the truth and keep the harmony of the Bible intact without changing it. God is a God of love. He sent His only begotten Son to save us from all our destructions and to heal our mortal bodies from their constant infirmities. Christ who is the Word made flesh came to give life and life more abundantly! The devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy that life out of ours.
Next time you think a trial has come to teach you something by the hand of God; I hope you will remember this preacher's message about a good God who prefers to bless you abundantly. He said in His Word, I know my thoughts towards you and they are not for evil, but for good. However, as a man sows, that shall he reap. Therefore, plant the Word of God in your heart deeply and live your life by eating its fruit every single day, and you will be unstoppable though your adversary will try again and again to find a way to break that Word from your possession. If Job found success and abundance under the Old order of things; how much more shall we that believe and follow faithfully the Words of Christ, enter the New Covenant which has better promises and will produce much more fruit than a person could possibly ever think or ask! My God! We ought to see our God differently in our trials and hold our ground: for God is not testing us, it is the devil that is after that living Word to which we are building our life upon. Therefore, count it all joy! You now know something that the devil did not want you to know.
Psalms 18:30 (KJV)
30 As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.
James 1:12 (KJV) 12 Blessed is the man that endures temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. 
