Suffering and study - Passion Week 2012

"Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15)

If you cannot express yourself well on each of your beliefs, work and study until you can. If you don’t, other people may miss out on the blessings that come from knowing the truth. Strive to re-express a truth of God to yourself clearly and understandably, and God will use that same explanation when you share it with someone else. But you must be willing to go through God’s winepress where the grapes are crushed. You must struggle, experiment, and rehearse your words to express God’s truth clearly. Then the time will come when that very expression will become God’s wine of strength to someone else. But if you are not diligent and say, “I’m not going to study and struggle to express this truth in my own words; I’ll just borrow my words from someone else,” then the words will be of no value to you or to others. Try to state to yourself what you believe to be the absolute truth of God, and you will be allowing God the opportunity to pass it on through you to someone else.

Always make it a practice to stir your own mind thoroughly to think through what you have easily believed. Your position is not really yours until you make it yours through suffering and study. The author or speaker from whom you learn the most is not the one who teaches you something you didn’t know before, but the one who helps you take a truth with which you have quietly struggled, give it expression, and speak it clearly and boldly.

(http://utmost.org/approved-to-god/)

_________

"He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be 

blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who

has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ

our Lord, is faithful." (I Corinthians 1:8-9)

Giving encouragement is often difficult, and sometimes awkward. How do you speak strength into someone? Strength that is not just "I know I should...", but strength that penetrates the heart. I have friends who have that gift of giving encouragement through words - where my heart goes from "I-know-that-I-should-trust- God" to "I-trust-God-will." Meditating on I Corinthians today, I learn from Paul, who starts off this letter with such empowering words, words that give hope. 

He writes, "I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus." He was ALWAYS thankful... despite the flaws (and there were many) of the church of Corinth. His thankfulness is not grounded upon the problems of the church, but based upon God's grace on them. We are one church, and we must be thankful for one another and realize that we all need His grace. Am I sincerely thankful for my brothers and sisters in this unconditional way?

Paul continues, and my favorite part: "He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into his fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful." Paul can't do anything for the church of Corinth, only God can. Jesus Christ, the head and cornerstone of the Church, is faithful to His people. Paul simply reminds them who their ultimate source of strength is -- Jesus Christ. So how do I give encouragement? By pointing them to Jesus Christ. And so I pray that my words of encouragement will not be powerless but empowered through Jesus Christ.

On an ending note, I am struck again that Paul couldn't have been thankful for the church of Corinth without Jesus Christ. Which means, I can't be truly thankful without Jesus Christ. We were deservingly doomed to death, but because of His death and resurrection, we have HOPE. That hope is what we share to the world. Hope that gives all of us potential, purpose, and power. So thank you, thank you, thank you Jesus... utterly thankful.