Be Strong In Adversities And Storms!

Eph 6:10  Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.

The Lord Does Not Put Us In Glass Houses to Grow us, to be His Trees...

The Lord Does Not Protect Us From The Storms, The Adversities...

He Exposes us to the Bitter Winds and the Scorching Suns of Adversity and Trial.

The Lord is Working In Us that which is According To His Own Nature...Eternity, The Enduring, The Everlasting God...

That which will not be Easily or Hardly carried away.

He Is Putting Substance In You.

Oh, today we fear that the Appeal to become Christians is so often in terms of having an Easy or a Good time...

Being happy and enjoying yourself...

Well, thank God for ALL Divine Joy...

But this is True to the House, to the City...

That the First Thing the Lord is Working Toward...

And Seeking To Work Into His People is that Substantial, Steadfast, Enduring Faithfulness that is according to His Own Nature.

Substantial!

Oh For Substantial Christians That Don’t Need Coddling And Nursing And Running After All The Time...

Being Pandered To Get Them To Go On Or Stand Up.

Men And Women Like Cedars Of Lebanon...

Like The Hewn Stones...

Weighty, Accountable, and Responsible to Carry Weight...

And all that is meant by Strength.

I can only remind you again of what a Large Place that has in the Word of God...

Be Strong, Be Strong in the Lord in the Strength of His Might...

Be Strong in the Grace that is in Christ Jesus.

Think again...

Want to Understand Why the winds are Allowed to blow so Fiercely...the storms?

To Get Us Away From That Natural, Easy-going-ness or Cheapness, Lightness, Frivolousness...

And To Make Us People Of Weight.

Strength Through Testing, Through Adversity...

Strength To Endure Throughout All Ages.

There is much which is going to be Carried Away in the Last Great Testing...

And if, therefore, Trial and Adversity is the Only Way to Deepen us, to Put Caliber into us...

I Suppose We Must Expect More Of It As The Time Shortens.

~T. Austin Sparks

In THAT Time BEFORE All Time!

 

Meditate, dear friends, upon the Whole Range Of God's Works in Creation and Providence.

There was a period when God dwelt alone, and creatures were not.

In that time before all time, when there was No day but "The Ancient Of Days,"...

When Matter and Created Mind were alike Unborn, and even space Was Not...

God, The Great I AM, was as Perfect, Glorious, and as Blessed as He is now.

There was No sun, and yet Jehovah Dwelt In ineffable Light.

There was No earth, and yet His throne Stood Fast and Firm.

There were No heavens, and yet His Glory Was Unbounded.

God inhabited eternity in the infinite Majesty and Happiness of His Self-Contained Greatness.

If the Lord, thus abiding in Solemn Solitude, should Choose To Create Anything--the first thought and idea Must come from Him... for there was no other to think or suggest.

All things must be of Him in design.

With whom can He take counsel?

Who shall instruct Him?

There existed no other to come into His council-chamber, even if such an assistance could be supposable with the Most High.

In the beginning of His Way, before His works of old, Eternal wisdom brought forth from its own mind the perfect plan of future creations...

And every Line and Mark therein must Clearly have been of the Lord Alone.

He Ordained the pathway of every planet, and fixed the abode of every star.

He Poured forth the sweet influences of the Pleiades, and girt Orion with its bands.

He Appointed the bounds of the sea, and settled the course of the winds.

As to the earth, the Lord Alone Planned Its Foundations, and Stretched His Line Upon It.

He Formed in His own mind, the mold of all His creatures, and found for them a dwelling and a service.

He Appointed the degree of strength with which He would endow each creature...

Settled its months of life...

Its hour of death...

Its coming and its going.

Divine Wisdom Mapped This Earth...

Its Flowing rivers and Foaming seas, the Towering mountains, and the Laughing valleys.

The Divine Architect Fixed The Gates Of The Morning...

And The Doors Of The Shadow Of Death.

Nothing could have been suggested by any other, for there was no other to suggest.

It was in His Power to have made a universe very different from this-if He had so pleased.

That He has made it what it is, must have been merely because in His Wisdom and Prudence, He Saw Fit To Do So.

Rev 4:11  Thou Art Worthy, O Lord, to Receive Glory and Honour and Power: for thou hast Created All Things, and for Thy Pleasure they are and were created.

~Charles Spurgeon