"More especially in time of sickness and pain does Satan press with all his might, " Does not God say, "Without holiness no one shall see The Lord?" You know holiness is the full image of God, and how far is this out of your sight! You cannot attain unto it. All these things you have suffered in vain."
"If your eye is not steadily fixed on Him who has borne all your sins, Satan will again bring you under that fear of death in which you were once subject to bondage. "
-John Wesley
"If your eye is not steadily fixed on Him who has borne all your sins, Satan will again bring you under that fear of death in which you were once subject to bondage. "
-John Wesley
I had a long phone conversation with a dear friend today. We both have our trials and although we have very different circumstances, we could realte to each other. We sorta had a pity party of two for just a moment, but then our discussion turned to prayer, then more conversation followed. It became more aligned to the verse in 1 Peter and this devotional quote from John Wesley. We both know as Christians that we will suffer, that everyone has some type of pain or another, but it's being able to go through pain and be yielded fully, to allowing the pain and hardship to make us holy. My friend reminded me that one day we will long to hear "Well done my good and faithful servant". It pulls me out of my magnified focus of my circumstances unto the eternal perspective that this is what purifies, if I let it. That's the key, to not let it make me bitter or hard at God, but to submit to the faithfulness of God, a God I know is good and just. That tells me His plans for me are good.
Romans 11: 33 says that God's ways are untraceable, His decisions are unsearchable. Beth Moore explained this verse this way: "God's ways are not His manners or habits, but courses He has taken and still takes. His paths are impossible to trace." She explained that we have the hardest time with God's decisions. The course can be ugly to us and we don't understand why He chose the path He did. We can't trace it by tracking and won't until we see Him face-to-face. While untraceable, every path comes from unfathomable wisdom and knowledge. He has complete knowledge and complete wisdom in the situations and circumstances we are in. It's His Sovereignty that I can't wrap my limited mind around.
Romans 11: 33 says that God's ways are untraceable, His decisions are unsearchable. Beth Moore explained this verse this way: "God's ways are not His manners or habits, but courses He has taken and still takes. His paths are impossible to trace." She explained that we have the hardest time with God's decisions. The course can be ugly to us and we don't understand why He chose the path He did. We can't trace it by tracking and won't until we see Him face-to-face. While untraceable, every path comes from unfathomable wisdom and knowledge. He has complete knowledge and complete wisdom in the situations and circumstances we are in. It's His Sovereignty that I can't wrap my limited mind around.
He purifies and sifts, and He uses our circumstances as a means to do that, but it is not in vain. The enemy wants us to think that it is, but our minds must remain fixed upon Him who holds a limitless and unfathomable inside knowledge of our situations. To be tranquil in Spirit, that is the challenge. It makes me so thankful for the conversation with my friend, to spur each other on in truth. I'm thankful for this song, which I heard for the first time this week and it undid me. Focusing on what I know to be true, that's what this song says.:
http://youtu.be/8YRko54M3_A
http://youtu.be/8YRko54M3_A
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