Christian Living Is a Stroll Thru the Park. Not!
Trust Christ as your Saviour and you will be happy ever after. No more problems. Smooth sailing. Life will be a breeze. Kiss farewell to teardrops and you will live the rest of your life with a perpetual smile on your face. Skipping and dancing in the streets will be the norm. Lighthearted and carefree. Burdens gone forever.
Has that been your experience? Not mine and probably not yours either.
Are you sure you have the right thing? That’s a serious question because some who are reading this note may not have the right thing. It is possible to be a professor but not a possessor of salvation. There are some who take the name of Christian but they don’t have the ‘root of the matter’ in them.
Having said that be sure of this – that trials, tears and tests are a normal part of Christian living. The children of God since
Have you read the story of Joseph lately?
Centuries after Joseph’s God honoring life had been lived and had ended, his testimony lived on. The Psalmist wrote about him in Psalm 105. Now millennia later, you are reading about him. By the way, Joseph is not still in iron fetters. The tears are now gone. He has been enjoying the presence of the Lord for quite a long time.
“When he (the Lord) summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread,
he had sent a man ahead of them,
Joseph,
who was sold as a slave.
His feet were hurt with fetters; his neck was put in a collar of iron;
until what he had said came to pass,
the word of the LORD tested him.
The king sent and released him; the ruler of the peoples set him free; he made him lord of his house and ruler of all his possessions…”
(Psalm 105:16-22)
The Lord tests us and tries us. But why? Have you read 1Peter 1:6-8 recently? What about James 1:2-5? And 2 Corinthians 1:3-5?
Joseph had only one life to live before His God and before the world. He had a brief time to do his thing on the stage of life. You can either blow it by doing your own thing or you can cooperate fully with the Lord and walk off the stage leaving a God-honoring performance in the minds of the people and in the record of Heaven.
Did you notice the word ‘until’ above? It was highlighted for a reason. It suggests that the journey through life is a process. His character was being tested. This is not a Bible verse; it’s a usable quote from an unidentifiable source: “If it doesn’t kill you outright, it’s character building.”
For Joseph there was an afterwards. There will be for you. There always is.
Walk carefully and closely with the Lord today.
Warmly in Christ
Peter Ramsay