When you need help for feelings of hopelessness know that God tests His people. Psalm 11:5 says “the LORD tests the righteous.” David is in the middle of a crisis. The wicked bend their bow and shoot their arrows at him. The only advice he seems to be receiving is to run away, “flee like a bird.” But he knows better. The arrows are flying. The battle is intense. The foundations are being destroyed. This could create such despair. But David is not distracted from God’s glory. The best thing to do in the midst of this crisis is to trust God and know that He tests the righteous.
Abraham is considered to be one of the greatest examples of a man of faith in all of Christian history. We count him as a great man of faith mainly because of this one time in his life in which God asked him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Look with me in Genesis 22:2, God said to Abraham, “take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. 3So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place to which God had told him. 4Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off. 5And Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back’.” We will come back. Here is the reason we recognize the great faith of Abraham. Hebrews 11:17 tells us that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son and he believed that both he and Isaac would return because He believed that God would even raise him up from the dead. But look further with me at Genesis 22:6, “So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together. 7But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, ‘My father!’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ Then he said, ‘Look the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’” Can you imagine anything more hopeless feeling than that? Can you just imagine the father looking into the eyes of his little boy, knowing that he was about to slay him? And then he strapped Isaac to the altar and raised his knife as he looked upon his only son as a sacrifice. And of course God stopped him and blessed him for his faithfulness, but here is the point I want us to see. In verse 1 we are told that God did all of this to “test” Abraham.
Now there are many complexities to this narrative with Abraham and Isaac that I do not have time to address today. But I do want you to understand this, God tests His people. You must remember this when you feel discouraged. When you feel hopeless. God may be testing you. And the Bible tells us why God tests His people. James 1:2-4 says, “count it all joy brethren when you fall into various trials (testings), knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” When I was first saved I was discipled by an older man who would always tell me that God was testing me in some way of trial. It took me awhile to understand what he meant and I’m still growing in my understanding of God’s testings in my life. But here is what I have learned. I am on a mission which is really God’s mission. And the mission is this: that I become conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. That I become perfect as He is perfect. That I become complete, lacking nothing, just as Jesus. The only way I will get there is by the purifying work that God places in my life through tests. And so it is with all of us who are followers of Christ. We see opposition. It is a test. We feel hopeless. God is purifying us. We feel discouraged. God is taking us to the next level.
No comments:
Post a Comment