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Dear Friends and Family,
This devotional below which I read recently was especially timely for me. I thought that you might receive a blessing from these words also. It was written over one hundred years ago so I adapted it a little adding a couple of Scriptures and a few words regarding modern day problems to it.
In Christ's Love,
Jon Zwayer
For he does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. Lamentations 3:33
Our heavenly Father does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. He has His purpose in the whirlwind and the storm, in the fire and in the flood. The Lord permits calamities to come to His people to save them from greater dangers. He desires everyone to examine his own heart closely and carefully, and then draw near to God, that God may draw near to him. Our life is in the hands of God. He sees dangers threatening us that we cannot see. He is the Giver of all our blessings; the Provider of all our mercies; the Orderer of all our experiences. He sees the perils that we cannot see. He may permit to come upon His people that which fills their hearts with sadness, because He sees that they need to make straight paths for their feet, lest the lame be turned out of the way. He knows our frame, and remembers that we are dust. Even the very hairs of our head are numbered. He works through natural causes to lead His people to remember that He has not forgotten them, but that He desires them to forsake the way which, if they were permitted to follow unchecked and unreproved, would lead them into great peril.
Trials come to us all to lead us to investigate our hearts, to see if they are purified from all that defiles. Constantly the Lord is working for our present and eternal good. Things occur which seem inexplainable, but if we trust in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him, humbling our hearts before Him, He will not permit the enemy to triumph. Besides this, we, who profess to be Christ's, should always remember His admonition to all: "Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man (or woman) through whom they come!" Matthew 18:7. In financial straits, in the marriage crisis, under mental or physical duress, will we, who name the name of Christ, resort to the same methods of accusations and retaliations as do those of the world to benefit and build themselves up? If we do so, we are no better than the Pharisees and Jews who justified all manner of sin and divorce for their own gain and glory. Their lives did not glorify God and they became so degraded that they even crucified His only Son.
Is your life glorifying God? You may divorce your spouse, and profess just cause, but while pretending you're married to God for one day a week or for a few minutes every day, you cannot, at your pleasure and whim, divorce your life from God to do as you will without impunity, notwithstanding whatever rationalizations you may use to justify these convenient and easy divorces that break your vows to your spouse and to the Lord. The Lord wants us to pray unceasingly and demands our whole heart everyday, not just in between the sins and divorces for which we so conveniently convince ourselves we will be forgiven. Without repentance, there is no forgiveness of sin, and repentance includes walking in newness of life. You may have the gift of tongues or you may understand and have the gift of prophecy, but if you have not love you have nothing, and nothing includes not having the Holy Spirit.
The Lord will save His people in His own way, by such means and instrumentalities that the glory will be returned to Him. To Him alone belongs the praise. Every soul that is saved must be a partaker with Christ of His sufferings, that he may be a partaker with Him of His glory. How few understand why God subjects them to trial. It is by the trial of our faith that we gain spiritual strength. The Lord seeks to educate His people to lean wholly upon Him. He desires them, through the lessons that He teaches them, to become more and more spiritualized. If His Word is not followed in all humility and meekness, He brings to them experiences which, if rightly received, will help to prepare them for the work to be done in His name. God desires to reveal His power in a marked manner through the lives of His people. Remember, in the trial of our faith, the final verdict will not be "Guilty" or "Not Guilty", but rather "I know you" or "I know you not".
"Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy. As every man has received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the revelations of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God gives: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." 1 Peter 4: 10-13.
Adapted from the book, Upward Look, p. 65.
Source:... Heart Communications Entered -- April 12, 2002