3-26-19 God's Gym

Daily Devotion: God's Gym - By Greg Laurie -
 
For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. -James 1:3-4
 
It's a good thing to go to the gym, but if you don't do anything while you're there, it isn't all that helpful. If you sit around on an exercise ball and use it as a pillow, that won't help you much. If you want to get stronger, you need to actually work out. You need to do things like cardio and weights. As they say, no pain, no gain.
 
That can be true in our spiritual lives as well. We have to go through times of testing to be built up spiritually. Testing and trials are God's gym in which we are broken down so we can be built up. To build muscle, you must break down muscle. The same is true of the spiritual life. To get stronger spiritually, we need to go through this process.
 
It is true of our faith as well. Faith is not given to us as a trophy to put into a display case. It is not given to us as something that we just stand back and admire. Faith is given to us to use, to put into action. And if we want our faith to get stronger, we will go through times of testing.
 
Hebrews 11:35-39 describes the kind of hardships that great men and women of faith from the Old Testament endured. These included torture, imprisonment, and stoning, to name a few. These heroes of the faith were world changers, and their faith grew stronger through experience.
 
Do you want to be a world changer? If you answered yes, if you say you want God to use you, then you're in effect also saying, "Lord, send me trials." Trials are a part of the Christian life. And if you want to be a world changer, you will be tested.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

9-17-23 Not in a Billion Years

Not In A Million Billion Years :: By Dave Hubley Published on: December 24, 2022 by RR10 Category:General Articles (There is a special message at the end of this article for those who might happen to read this and do not have Jesus in their life and are looking for peace and a way to better understand the present-day insanity and confusion.) Several years ago, I had a conversation with a guy in a waiting room while getting an oil change (in the car, not me). I don’t recall exactly how the conversation originated or how it progressed, but I have never forgotten it. As I recall, it had something to do with evolution and an article that was contained in a “waiting room magazine” that was available there. He made the observation that God was “something that man had made up.” I can’t recall the exact reason he used to justify his opinion, but it had something to do with the usual reasons people give: Weak-willed people needing a crutch, and blah, blah, blah. I engaged him in a “witness,
Read more

9-16-23 Santa Staleness

Santa Staleness :: By Edwin Tan Published on: December 24, 2022 by RR10 Category:General Articles My one and only trip to Israel had more than a profound effect on my present-day psyche. It might have been three decades ago, but there is more than a lingering aftertaste. It happened smack in the last fortnight of the year. Surprisingly absent were the familiar sights and sounds of the Christmas most people are accustomed to. Hardly any Christmas decorations in downtown Tel Aviv, if not any of the shopping thoroughfares across the Holy Land. Hanukah was a breath of fresh air – not anything resembling a Christmas carol most people grew up with did surface. The Christmas Eve service in a small Protestant church not far away from Jerusalem’s Old City was awesome; songs that truly celebrated the virgin birth of our Lord, which though seemingly unheard of, were a welcome inspiration to many a soul. There was even one sung in Arabic! So it began, my overt disdain for the secular Christmas t
Read more

9-15-23 Miracles 2

Miracles 2 :: By Jim Towers Published on: December 21, 2022 by RR10 Category:General Articles This story is a continuation of the exciting things God continues doing in my life. I was supposed to have died a while back, and sometimes I feel as though I may do so soon. But since I’m ready to meet my maker, I have no fear of death. In fact, my evangelistic zeal has only increased, especially as I see the fast approaching of the “Tribulation period” mentioned in the book of Revelation. Insofar as my acting career is concerned, I just finished filming a soliloquy featuring Melchior, one of the three Magi who followed the star to Christ lying in the manger, and am preparing to portray a Jewish Priest on stage. Like I said, God is working overtime in my life, and I will be appearing on stage singing Broadway show tunes sometime in March, so I have a lot of rehearsing to do. In the meantime, I will be signing Christmas carols acapella at a park here in Naples. Since it is a spontaneous th
Read more