Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Endurance Training
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. (
How we wish we could find some La-Z-Boy we could relax in while getting the benefits of exercise. But no such thing exists. In the same way, when we’re running in the race of life, we can’t be sitting. You can’t run and stand still at the same time. If you are sitting, you are not running. If you are running, you are not sitting.
Even as muscle gets stronger through use as it’s broken down and built up, the same is true of faith. James 1 says, “When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realise that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance” (verses 2–3 phillips).
God will test our faith for our own good. I know we would like to have trouble-free lives. I know we would like to have temptation free-lives. It’s been said that one Christian who has been tempted is worth a thousand who haven’t. It’s also said that Christians are a lot like teabags; you don’t know what they are like until after you put them into hot water.
Faith grows stronger through testing. Take Abraham for example. The Lord started by telling him to leave his country. Later on God told him to take his son Isaac and lay him on the altar. He started with a simple test and went on to a more difficult one.
We’ll go through series of tests in our Christian lives of faith, and each one will make us stronger. Yes, the tests will get harder. But we’ll get even stronger, because God is whipping us into shape for greater challenges and greater opportunities. Everything is preparation for something else.
Copyright © 2018 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
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