The man that covers his sins shall not prosper. The man that covers his infirmities shall not prosper. The man that covers his tribulation shall not prosper. The man that covers his suffering, his torment, his struggles, his battles, or his flesh shall not prosper. Paul said that he was thankful for his hardship, his sufferings, and his shipwreck. He was thankful for even the thorn in his flesh because it kept him from pride.
Beloved, you are missing something when you run away from your sufferings. The Bible says if anyone wants to follow Jesus, they must be willing to suffer with Him. Jesus suffered and was tempted in every way possible. Yet the Bible says ALL THINGS work TOGETHER for the good of those who love God. That means good and bad. God and satan. Forces of darkness and light. God uses both things and all things working together for His good pleasure in us. To form us, to transform us. To renew us. The Bible even says tribulation produces patience and patience, character, and after character, hope. The bad in our life is even working together for the good of His life in us.
The Lord said in Isaiah, "I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things." Yet then it says, "Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit." He uses the elements, the events, and the happenings of this life to draw us back to Him. Even when we look back at some history events after major disasters, many people were brought back to God. We need to get a hold of this because most don't even realize that everything they are going through right now is forming them into the image of God. Even when the enemy is attacking you, God is using it to squeeze you. When gold is pulled from the ground, it must go through a process of separation. The dross, the dirt from the earth, must be burned off and unstuck so that the gold would be presented as spotless. It must undergo a pressuring from the fire. It goes through the fire, and the fire brings massive amounts of pressure that it would separate the things from the earth and the gold.
Beloved, you are the gold. And God has plucked you from "the field," the world, and with His fire. He is using the pressure of the fire to separate us from the world. All that stuff you’re feeling, all these things you go through, it is because God is bringing a separation. Of flesh and spirit. Joint and marrow. The world and the Kingdom. This is how God does it. He uses the things we go through to separate us from what is not of Him. Are you being tormented? Maybe God is using it to lead you to repentance. Maybe God is using it to draw you closer to Him. Maybe the enemy just came to pounce on you, but God is waiting for you to come to Him. Job got no reasoning from God as to why he went through what he went through. Yet at the end of the day, when the fire was done working on Job, Job came out of the fire unscathed, untouched as if he went through nothing, but he was at another level in the spirit and received all back and twice as much more than he already had.
Yes, he lost his family, yes he lost everything he had, but he gained everything he needed for life and godliness. When you're under the hand of God, to lose is to gain. There's a reason there's loss in your life because there's something to gain in Him. You may lose things in the flesh, but you shall gain things in the Spirit. We have to stop hiding from our struggles, and we need to start using our struggles all the more to run to God. Actually, we need to let our struggles break us! He chastises those that He loves!
The Book of Psalms says a pleasing sacrifice is a broken and contrite spirit. We need to let ourselves be broken about our current state. He will turn our mourning into dancing, He will turn our ashes into beauty, He will turn our tears into joy. SOW the tears! Sow the ashes. Sow the morning! And you will reap! You will reap the joy! The beauty! The dancing! You don't dance just to dance. You dance because God has broken in. You dance because He sets you free! Yet if there's nothing to set you free from, how will you ever be free?
Use your flesh! Use your hardships! Put it on the altar and let it burn! Use your flesh. Let it be like WAX that your FIRE would never go out. You have no fire because there's nothing to burn! Our flesh is the material! Use it! The attacks of the enemy, use it! Your faults and mishaps be broken before God about it and let Him comfort you and deliver you. God visits the broken. How can He ever fix us if we are already fixed? He has created it all this way that we would realize and never forget our need for Him. That we would realize that He's the only thing that is to be desired. God will even let some flesh out with their idols to finally realize that they don't love their idols anymore and that they would love God all the more!
The greatest revivals you ever hear about are the ones where people are broken about their sin, broken about the darkness, and broken about their separation from God. What does it do? It drives them to the altar! The Bible says there must be weeping between the porch and the altar. Yes, you're at the door of His temple, but you haven't entered in yet. You haven't even gotten to the Holy of Holies yet, but weeping is what will fill the gap to the altar. Weeping, brokenness, will lead you to the altar. The heavy burden is supposed to be heavy that it would drive you to bow before Him. That it would drive you to your face that you would seek His face!
Your feeling of separation from God, let it drive you to seek Him. Let it drive you to the altar. We don't just go to God. Life crushes us, and then God shows up. Then you find strength in weakness. Paul thanked God for his weakness because, in His weakness, the power of God rested on him. How will we ever realize how great the light is unless there is darkness? God has created it all this way that all of creation would glorify Him. That even the darkness would be used to glorify the light in human vessels. That the darkest darkness would make the light of God even more bright!
In your weakness is what will keep you pressing in! Your weakness is made that it will outmatch your self strength, that you would find His strength. That you would throw yourself at the altar and say, “God, I can't do it! God, I give up! I need you. I can't do it without you.” Pride is destroyed in that moment. Self-will is destroyed in that moment. Mans's strength is destroyed in that moment.
What are you going through? Don't ignore it! Don't fight it. Yet let it drive you to the altar. Let it make you burn for Him. Let it crush you that He would have His way. He helps the helpless. He fixes the broken. Candlewax is made to burn that the fire would never go out. Wax is made through dead things. Dead animals, vegetables, and the dead flesh that comes off bees make wax. The flesh is seeping of wax to burn for God. The flesh is your wax before God. The Bible says the mountains will melt like wax before the presence of the Lord, and Micah 1:4 says, “The mountains melt beneath him and the valleys split apart, like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope.”
Don't go around the mountain anymore. Let it be tossed in the sea by the fire of God. Let the fire of God burn it all down. As it's burning, your burning for Him, but to burn for Him, you need wax! You need a substance, a material to burn. You want to be on fire for God? Take your mountains to Him; take your struggles to Him. Take your sin to Him, take your thorns before Him, and let them melt like wax before Him.
Let it keep you on FIRE. Your flesh is the blessing that will make you a blazing lion before Him. It's in adversity that a brother is born. Now I say to you, Brother of Jesus, Sister of Christ, don't be discouraged because the very thing that is rising against you is the very thing that God is using for you. It is that very thing that is keeping you in Him. It is that very struggle that is keeping you holding tight to the Word. Even the enemy starts to become a blessing because even the devil's tactics put Jesus in a state of watching and praying at a crucial time as Jesus will was being tempted. Even when you’re tempted, it will drive you to pray, it will drive you to WAKE UP! It will drive you away from lukewarmness. What do you need the sword for if there is no enemy! Yet you grab the sword, not because someone tells you to, but because you need it! Let the attacks of the enemy, the adversity, turn you into a warrior!
Many are lukewarm because they let the things of this life and the attacks of the enemy take over. Instead of it leading them to put on the full armor of God, they let it dominate. There are two types of people, the disciples in the garden that let spiritual sleep take over, and then there’s Jesus, the one who let His warfare, and even the temptation to spiritually sleep, drive Him to His father all the more. He let the trials drive Him boldly to the throne of grace!
Instead of crying out to God, the disciples attempted in their own strength to obey Jesus in the garden, but they should have let their lack of strength put a burning inside of them, a cry for God's help to strengthen them. Even Peter, trying not to deny Jesus, tries in his own strength to not deny Him; even Peter needed Jesus's strength just to help him not to deny Him.
What is it today that is outmatching you? I say this to you, "Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, brethren, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing" (James 1:2-4).
By Joe Pinto
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