Monday, August 11, 2008

embracing tribulations

A friend recently passed along the site for the Chappell family's blog and I have started reading it, from the beginning. They, too, are receiving God's peace as He is bringing them through such a difficult time of losing their baby. I am quoting a quote from their blog. It originally was taken from Milton Vincent's A Gospel Primer for Christians and it just really struck home with me. Here it is:

"More than anything else could ever do, the gospel enables me to embrace my tribulations and thereby position myself to gain full benefit from them. For the gospel is the one great permanent circumstance in which I live and move; and every hardship in my life is allowed by God only because it serves His gospel purposes in me. When I view my circumstances in this light, I realize that the gospel is not just one piece of good news that fits into my life somewhere among all the bad. I realize, instead that the gospel makes genuinely good news out of every other aspect of my life, including my severest trials (Romans 5:1-5). The good news about my trials is that God is forcing them to bow to His gospel purposes and do good unto me by improving my character and making me more conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28; James 1:2-4; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Preaching the gospel to myself each day provides a lens through which I can view my trials in this way and see the true cause for intelligent rejoicing that exists in them. I can embrace them as friends and allow them to do God's good work in me."

His love for us is amazing! He willingly sacrificed His own son for us! "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8) By keeping our (my) focus on that piece of truth, how could I believe anything other than that God has only my best interest in mind?

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