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November 18, 2017 - October 22, 2019
God routinely tests our faith as part of the process by which He makes men.
do—for the promise of a better future? Faith is letting the
reality of the unseen rule over the unreality of the seen. To leave the familiar present for an unknown future is a supreme test of faith—but it is the kind of faith God rewards.
Is God asking you to trust Him with something? Will you believe God’s great promise for an invisible future or cling to the visible present?
How about you? Whatever God has called you to start, pull an Abraham. Reset your clock and don’t give up. God is testing you. He might test you for decades. Will you trust God to do what seems impossible? Whatever is not happening that you believed God was going to do, here’s my advice: Give it a few more years. Give God a chance to bring glory to Himself by fulfilling your longing.
“Faith is like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the bigger it grows.”
The third test God put to Abraham could be expressed this way: Are you willing to give God the one thing you most want to keep?
His testing over the years had built his faith muscle until it was like the bicep of a bodybuilder.
The test God put to Abraham is the same one Jesus puts to us: Are you willing to give up the one thing you most want to keep?
What are you hanging on to that keeps you from fully trusting Christ with the details of your life? Like James at the beginning of the chapter, what is your “Brandy” that you need to give back to God? That is the thing He is asking you to let go of.
Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the LORD will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being snared. (Proverbs 3:25–26)
The
advantage of
walking with God in fait...
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years is that you actually come to a place where it is harder to doubt than believe, because you have see...
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Do you really believe that God is faithfully at work in your life
today—leading you, shaping you, and remaking you into a more complete man for His glory? It’s hard to believe, isn’t it, when your circumstances seem out of control?
God makes men by orchestrating even the toughest circumstances of our lives for a greater good.
Nothing that happens to us by human decision can ever happen apart from the will of God. Does that sound overstated? Let me show you how it’s completely true—so true that you can stake your life on it. Listen to Joseph put this powerful principle in his own words:
Until He makes your purpose visible, however, your comfort is to know that nothing can ever happen to you apart from the will of God. He knows everything about you. Matthew 10:29
“In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
The simple truth is that we can endure almost any amount of pain if we believe it has a purpose.
Even in the toughest of circumstances, God’s plan is always the same. It’s to put His power on display in my life and your life to bring about a greater good—one that will bring Him the glory that only He deserves.
He will absolutely put His power on display in your life if you persevere.
The good theology and takeaway from this chapter is that God always orchestrates every event in our lives to bring about a greater good. This eternal truth is an essential part of how God makes us into the men He wants us to be. We are never left alone.
Once Joseph understood that his suffering wasn’t random, that God’s sovereign plan was to use him to save his family and bring God glory, everything changed. His anxiety turned to peace, his bitterness turned to forgiveness, and his desire turned from retaliation to reconciliation. He saw God’s larger perspective and purpose, even though it took decades.
Remain faithful, and God will use your seemingly dead-end marriage to reveal His glory through a greater good. So stay the course.
Nothing done to you by human decision can ever be done apart from God’s will. Whatever others have meant for evil, He will use it for good.
God makes men by taking us through a humbling process that fundamentally changes the way we think.
Clearly, he was acting in his own wisdom and strength, not under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
But God is more interested in the success of our character than the success of our circumstances.
That’s not to say God doesn’t want us to be successful in our circumstances.
God will never sacrifice our character to improve our circumstances. He simply loves us too much to let us destroy ourselves. Like Moses, and probably you too, I learned this the hard way.
“Since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.” Did you hear that? When the body suffers, sin loses power.
“As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God” (verse 2).
Yes, the wilderness experience is painful, but God uses the pain like a can opener to get inside our hearts and open us up to t...
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God needed to humble me because I wasn’t strong enough to humble myself.
What can you do if you’re in the wilderness right now because you went before you were sent? One thing you most definitely don’t want to do is try to shorten the duration of your wilderness experience.
As I said, a major reason God puts us there in the first place is to work some things
into and out of our character. If we don’t go through it, then we won’t learn everything He has for us in it. You’ll never grow in faith if you keep...
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So instead of praying that God will shorten the duration of your hard times, pray that you will learn everything God has for you during your wilderness experience so ...
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His stumble had made him humble.
Humbling us so we can hear Him is one of the main ways God transforms
men’s lives.
Moses went before he was sent, and his stumble made him humble.
God is never more near than when He seems far away.
It’s interesting. When Moses considered himself adequate to deliver his people, God considered him inadequate. But decades later and a world away, when Moses considered himself inadequate, God considered him exactly right for the job. He passed his final exam. He graduated. He was transformed into a different kind of man—a humble man ready to live in utter dependence on the Lord.
I think the lesson is clear. God can use an inadequate man once he realizes he is inadequate.
Remember, God is never more near than when He seems far away.
The purpose of the wilderness is for God to recalibrate how we see Him, ourselves, and our role in the world.
