How do we live a life that
Glorifies God?
Gate 4: Valley Gate – Trials, Growth
and Humility
A pastor
jokingly said, “I hope you all don’t
stumble because of us. If we had not been saved, can you imagine how worse we
could be?”
These
pastors and leaders are being goofy, joking around while they were introducing
themselves the team one time.
I replied, “Neither can I, Pastor. We are all the
same.”
INDEED!
we are a
band of wretched lives. If not for His grace where could we be? If not for his
grace where would I be? And his grace is
not only sufficient to save me from who I was but more than enough to make me
who He has always wanted me to be. In the daily battles of obedience, I get
knocked down, losing almost. Many times come out of a battle wounded, but
victorious. For in each wounding is the death not of His life in me but death
of the ME that still lives. The pain leads to humbling, humbling leads to
growth.
Jesus
was fully human and fully God when He came on earth. He lived the humblest life
taking the very nature of a servant and being crucified on a cross like a
criminal.
The bible tells us that He was tempted in all ways but never sinned.
He
went through all the pains of life, losing a father at a young age, having to
be the bread winner, doubted by his brothers, doubted and even denied by the
people he served and loved, betrayed by a friend and so on.
He is acquainted
with all our pain. He has been persecuted and judged. And all this He went
through not because He was disobedient but because He was fulfilling the will
of His Father.
I look at my pain. I can’t compare it with His.
I can never accuse
Him of not caring, of not understanding. He knows my pains really well.
Knowing and understanding this a little more comforts me and helps me persevere. Who I was
is part of who I am and God is using that to make me who I ought to be. And though
he found me in rubbles, I pray that each
stone would sing of what He can redeem.
For our light and momentary troubles
are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix
our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is unseen is
temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:17-18
Let all afflictions be eclipsed
by His glory.
- - Cecil
