The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
To The Glory of God
When “bad” things happen to Christians, we frequently wonder what they have done in the past to deserve it. The Bible is clear that tribulation and suffering are not necessarily deserved or earned. Reasons for trials in a Christian’s life include God’s training by testing, God’s glory, the spread of the gospel, Satan’s sieve, or the consequences of unconfessed sin. The glory of God is the topic of this week’s devotional.
While humans fear adversity, illness, and death, God uses these things in our lives, not only for the spread of the gospel and to train us, which I will cover next week, but also for His glory. He sees the end and the beginning all at the same time. When Joseph, for instance, was sold into slavery by his brothers, God already knew what the outcome would be. Through a series of events beyond Joseph’s control, including several years of undeserved imprisonment, he found himself in a position of power with the fate of many people in his hands during a seven-year famine. When his brothers begged his forgiveness for having sold him to the Ishmeelites, he responded, “…you intended evil against me. But God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save many people alive” (Gen. 50:20).
2 Corinthians 4:8-9 and 15-18 reminds us that “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. … For all things are for your sakes that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God for which cause we faint not but, though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
We frequently forget the promises of Scripture and we miss the blessings of His presence and protection as a result of lack of faith. I am reminded of a woman attending our church at the time of Dan’s first cancer diagnosis in 2006. She loudly, frequently, and extensively proclaimed that God had abandoned her during chemotherapy. “In the midst of, humanly speaking, tragic events and terminal illness, even Christians expect to be prostrated with despair. But my Bible tells me of a different scenario, one in which hope is made possible by the presence of the Holy Spirit in us” (The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith, p 6)
God does not expect us to go through trials without His support. As 2 Peter 1:3-4 states, “According as His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” In addition, Jude 24 tells us “Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever.”
Our joy, even in the midst of trials, is inseparably bound to our relationship with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And God is glorified by this visible demonstration of His presence in us: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:1-2). Furthermore, everything about our lives should reflect the “upward view”, i.e. our focus on seeking to know more about Jesus and the understanding that “…the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waits for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:18-19).
“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. That you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (Eph. 3:14-21).
