For our devotion series, we are looking at “Prayer and the Will of God”. In our text, we find some very precious promises given to us by our Lord …. Rom 8:28 (KJV) And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose.
We know that all things work together for good. We have previously looked at the idea of things being for “our good”. We saw that this phrase takes our attention off the physical appearance of something and places our attention on something’s nature or character. Although our life’s trials certainly do not LOOK as if they are for our benefit, their NATURE is that of being beneficial to us.
Now let’s look at the idea of “all things work together” for our good. The Lord does not promise that any one event, when it stands alone, will result in our benefit. His promise is that when all the events of our life are examined in their totality,we will find that they all played a role in bringing about our good. One of the greatest examples of this principle is found in 1Sam 17:32-37… And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine…. David said moreover, The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the LORD be with thee.
In this account, we find several different events in David’s life being used together to work for his good. David recounts two tests of his faith one with the bear, the other the lion trying to steal from His flock. He smote both which worked to increase his faith in God. This increase in faith was then used by God to strengthen David to do battle with the giant, Goliath. Those two events (lion and bear) were allowed and designed to be used together for David ‘s benefit because Goliath was yet to come. In a sense these three events in David’s life were a “package deal” . It is very possible they were interdependent upon one another. Here is what I mean by that statement…
Not knowing God’s mind, and all His will concerning David’s life, let me just speculate on something…I think it is possible, that if David was not to face Goliath, it is very possible the Lord would not have allowed the lion and bear to attack His flock. The principle would be this… if David had no need for an increased faith in his future, the Lord would not have allowed such horrible events in the preceding portion of his life. Again, this is only my speculation the Bible does not actually say. But I do know the Lord works this way in our lives all the time…
He is constantly bringing a difficult situation(s) in our life to enable us to faithfully handle even greater adversity that lies in our future. He is gradually building our faith, through the difficult experiences in life, so that we may be able to faithfully handle what is to come. (1 Cor 10:13)
This sword cuts both ways …
1. in one sense… when we come to understand this truth it is a great blessing. Our Lord loves us so much that He is will work to gradually strengthen our weaknesses so our future difficulties will not bring us down and destroy us.
2. but, in another sense… when we realize it is possible the difficulty we face is preparing us for greater difficulties, this blessing may seem to lose its shine just a bit (from a fleshly view of things).
In any case, we can know for certain…. ALL things DO work together for our good. We can rest assured the difficulties we face have a purpose. And when all is said and done, we will be glad we have faced the very trials that were desperately trying to cause us anxiety, pain and fear.
May the Lord bless us as we “Think On These Things”.
SIH Homepage: http://www.settledinheaven.org
SIH Text Blog: http://settledinheaven.wordpress.com/all-about-salvation/
SIH Video Blog: http://youtube.com/settledinheaven/
SIH Email: settledinheaven@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment