God Uses Afflictions to Make Us Better
Posted: 2009-12-25 14:35:12 by: David Nelson
God Uses Afflictions To Make Us Better
After reading an article/sermon by David Wilkerson entitled "The Healing Power of Afflictions" I had the following thoughts. I will share in the following writing, in my own words, some of my encouraging thoughts. Psalms 34:19 says, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord will deliver him out of them all." God uses afflictions, trouble, pain, anxiety, etc. for His purposes in our lives.
David, the writer of many Psalms, believes that the Lord allows us to be afflicted to heal us of our dross, foolishness, and the flesh in us. (Ps. 119:67, 71,92) If we don't see the Lord working in our circumstances, if we don't believe our steps are ordered by His hand, including our dire situations our faith will crash or shipwreck.
In Ps. 66:10-12 it says that we are being refined as silver (and in the New testament, purified as gold). Our afflictions are for our eternal good to heal us and refine us. But the Lord's heart is not in His chastening (or in our pain) but in the healing it brings to us. The Lord says, I must remove the cancer and the disease that threatens my beloved children no matter how it may hurt them. The book of Job teaches that Satan cannot lift his finger against us unless God allows it, yet if God allows it, it must be for our good. God must 1st let down His wall of protection that is always around us for evil to touch us. God limits how far the devil can go.
When the trials and problems don't end we must keep our faith in a living God and a "working it all out" God and keep walking with Him though all the trouble continues. He is with us in all our trials and will never let go of us. If we can just keep an open heart toward God and say to Him, Does this trial mean something? Are you trying to tell me something? The Lord says to us, I want you to know Me in the midst of this. My love is still greatly over you and has not changed. Will you keep loving Me through this? I am teaching you the depths of my love and drawing you into a deeper relationship with Me. Will you keep loving Me? The suffering of the saints whose trials continue day after day, year after year, and sometimes for a lifetime, I do not fully understand, says David Wilkerson. Some of the godliest people seem to suffer the most and the longest. But we must keep our faith through all things to the end. Paul died in prison, John the Baptist died in prison, Jesus died (but rose again) taken from behind prison doors. All these and many others lived powerful lives for the Lord's glory and had the deepest joy and relationship with the Lord, with all the afflictions the Lord chose for each of them. We too are called to this wonderful journey with the Lord, to go higher and higher with Him.
