DAILY DEVOTIONAL – August 30, 2019
“Flex”
Prayer: Our most Powerful God, though You command the universe and even the stars obey You, in all of Your magnificent might, You still come to us ever so gently to mold and shape us into the image of Your Beloved Son Jesus. Lord strengthen our faith in Jesus, especially during the times in life when the pain is most intense. We ask this for Your glory. Amen.
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:6-7
6 So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. 7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.
Devotion – “Flex!”
No pain, no gain. I think that is true not only when it comes to our physical health and exercise, but also when it comes to our spiritual health and outlook on life in general. Of course, there are different kinds of pain. Pain from an injury or overstressing the body or overdoing it in a workout is not good pain that gains us anything at all. However, there is a good kind of pain. The good kind of pain that causes the body to react, to re-set, to re-form itself and adapt. This is how good muscle and physical endurance is achieved; by pushing the body appropriately outside of it’s comfort zone.
In our passage from 1 Peter chapter 1, although he is not explicitly making a comparison to physical health, I think Peter is saying much the same thing about our spiritual strength and health and endurance. When our bodies are pushed to be healthy and tested regularly outside of our comfort zone, the result is a positive one – weight loss, better health, more energy and a higher tolerance for pain in order to gain more. In a similar way, God allows our faith and our spiritual health to be tested, to be pushed outside of our comfort zone, and yes, we can say that God will even permit and use pain in our life in order to graciously provide for us gains in our faith and spiritual health. Just as healthy pain brings a higher physical tolerance and ability, so to God test’s our faith and even uses the pain caused by our sin and this sinful world in order to bring us the gains of stronger and more resilient faith that brings glory and honor to Jesus our Lord, as the very endurance of our faith bears witness to and testifies to God’s faithfulness and goodness.
Of course, no one feels like they are gaining much when you first start working out and are out of shape, sore and seem only to be gaining a bigger supply of IBUprofen. But in time, results start to manifest and along with that, the ability to push harder and further to realize the goal. Neither do we feel we are gaining much when God allows our faith to be tested through the pain of trials. However, this is where the mighty Hand and Work of our Loving God is most at work. The Apostle Paul knew this well. Paul tells us about a thorn that was put in his side. It was some kind of physical pain or spiritual temptation that was a constant source of grief for Paul. In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 Paul tells us, “in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Did you know that when you lift weights to gain strength, in order to put on muscle, what is actually happening is that you are tearing the muscle fibers? Whether you are lifting light weights repeatedly for therapy or maintenance, or whether you are power lifting for competition, the same process is happening. Muscle fibers tear and rip so that the body can use the healthy foods you’re eating to generate new and increasing amounts of muscle. This is how they grow. What’s true of our physical muscles designed by God, is exponentially true of our spiritual muscle of faith. God uses times of trial and pain to bring us to weakness, to graciously break us down, and break apart the power and strength we think we have and instead fill us with His loving power. As John the Baptist said when he saw Jesus and proclaimed Him to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, “I must become less, He must become more.” This is exactly why Peter can tell us to be “truly glad” when we find ourselves most tested and in the most pain…because “7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So, when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.”
It is most important when working out the hardest to eat the smartest as well. The body cannot repair muscles and gain muscle with junk food. Likewise, God has given us His Word to eat so that in those times of ripping and tearing in our spiritual life, our faith is well nourished with the Word of God and grows even bigger through the pain.
As I was preparing this devotional, I was reminded of a story I once heard. I can’t remember exactly how or from whom I received it, or whether it is actually true, but I think it is a helpful story to help illustrate and drive home what God would have for us to learn today from His Word.
A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.
Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil; without saying A word.
In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl.
Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, “Tell me what you see.” “Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied.
Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.
Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled, as she tasted its rich aroma the daughter then asked, “What does it mean, mother?”
Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its insides became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.”
“Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?
Friends, if left to our own feeble human strength and power, we cannot help but be a carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity becomes soft and loses its strength – or an egg that starts with a malleable heart, but only hardens and stiffens in the heat? However, God has not left us to ourselves or our own strength. Only by faith alone in Christ are we like coffee as God tenderly and lovingly changes us more each day into the new creation He has already made us to be in Christ Jesus. God has given us the precious gift of faith in and through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus. And faith is God’s gift to us. As the book of Hebrews says, Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith, and the mighty God who has called us to faith has promised and is sure to sustain and strengthen that faith for His glory – especially through times of our weakness so His power might prevail. As it says in Philippians 1:6, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
As Peter said, “Be truly glad” my friends, knowing that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
