When experiencing times of suffering, many Christians glibly proclaim, "God must be building character in me." Nothing could be further from the truth! God is not trying to build character in you during times of suffering. Why isn't He trying to build character into us? It's because the moment we responded to Him and believed in Jesus as our Savior, He put all of His character into us. It's already there. That's grace for you.
2 Peter 1:4a tells us: "For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature." To partake of God's divine nature means we were united to God Himself at salvation. His character was given to us and became our identity in Christ.
It's not that we became God nor did He become us at salvation. We remain separate but united. It's like making tea. The tea bag releases its flavor into the hot water and we have delicious drinkable tea. The water takes on the character of the tea, yet, they remain separate. John 17:21 says, that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. (NASB)
Hard times are still hard times. Yet, God remains good and can use these as opportunities for the character already in us to come out. In other words, we get to live like who we are in Christ and we can ask Jesus in us to live through us to handle these challenges. 2 Cor 12:9 Each time he said, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness. So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me."(NLT)
Our enemy may tempt us to believe that because life is difficult, God isn't really good, He doesn't love us or He's mad at us. God is none of those. He loves us and is good. Because we are united with God and can't be separated from Him, we have the confidence that we can go to our Heavenly Dad and talk to Him all about it. We can tell Him how sad we are, how angry we feel, how confusing life is, how hurt we are and ask Him to speak to us. if you don't know what to pray, take comfort, the Holy Spirit is praying for you according to Romans 8:26. And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don't know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. (NLT)
We may also need to share our struggles with a trusted friend or our small group. Someone asked me recently, who Ellen and I talk to as our daughter's autoimmune encephalitis continues into its second year. Mostly, each other, but we both also have others we can pour out our hearts to for prayer and counsel.
Believe it! It's the Gospel.
Live Free In Christ,
Mark Maulding, President and Founder
www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2016 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!
