Good morning,
Since
early November my inbox has been stuffed with all sorts of mail from
almost any company that has sold me anything over the years. They have
done their best to thank me for my good judgment for ordering something
from them in the past and then encouraging me to buy their high quality
goods at wonderful prices too good to pass up. Their beautiful pictures
and their glowing words sounded good, but would their stuff really
stand the test of real life work and reliability after they got my
money? That’s when we need the opinion of an expert group of folks who
put the stuff through real life testing. Folks like Consumer’s Report
make their living by trying out the stuff we have been offered under
challenging conditions and then tell us the truth about the quality of
what the salesmen want us to buy. Sadly the ad writers often make us
promises that make them rich and leave us disappointed and frustrated
with the junk we bought.
One of the dangers we face as
representatives of our Creator God is the same tendency on our part of
telling people what they want to hear in order for them to become part
of our group or movement. We give them words, ideas and formulas that
God has given us, without any proof of the truth of what God has said.
The Lord’s way of showing us and them the truth of what he has said is
to give us problems and trials that show us that God will keep his
promises to us when we live in obedience to him. If we really love
Jesus and the people around us we will be able to keep growing and
loving in the face of harder and harder tests that he sends to show us
the reality of his power and love. When they see us celebrating God’s
goodness and power instead of whining about the stress of growing up in
our faith, they will start to pay attention to what we say about the God
we serve. The endurance we demonstrate, and the strength of our
character under stress, and the certain hope we have in our salvation
will be proof to them and us that joy and not disappointment is the work
of God’s love in our lives. They will be able to see the work of the
Holy Spirit in our lives and will be drawn to the love that they have
been longing for, but were afraid they would never find. Dear Lord,
help our love for you and for them to be believable love.
Romans 5:3
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know
that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength
of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.
5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly
God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our
hearts with his love.
Roy Wisner
