These little troubles are getting us ready for an eternal glory that will make all our troubles seem like nothing. -2 Corinthians 4:17. (Life Application Study Bible)
Jesus Tells us…I promise to meet all your needs. And while you may not realize it, your greatest need is for My Peace. I am the Gardener of your heart, planting seeds of peace. But the world also tosses in seeds. These seeds grow into weeds of pride, worry, and selfishness. If these weeds are not ripped out quickly, they will choke out all your peace. I get rid of those weeds in different ways. Sometimes, when you sit quietly in prayer, My light shines on the weeds and they shrivel up. But other times, I use troubles to encourage you to trust Me. And that trust kills the weeds.
Jesus Concludes…so thank Me for troubles, as well as joys. Because I use them both to make your heart My garden of Peace.
-2 Corinthians 4:17; Philippians 4:19 Study Notes
Footnotes -2 Corinthians Our troubles do not need to diminish our faith or disillusion us. We should realize that God cares deeply about our suffering, even when we don’t have tangible evidence of his work. However, our problems and human limitations can have several positive result: (1) They can teach us how to suffer with Christ. (2) They can teach us to persevere faithfully. (3) They can teach us to look beyond this life for hope. (4) They can be used by God to demonstrate his power. Even when our pain feels great, God is still good and faithful, and his glory is always greater.
Passage Philippians 4:19 And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
Footnotes Philippians 4:19 We can trust that God will always meet our needs. Whatever we actually need on earth he will always supply, even if, like Paul, it is the courage to face death. We must remember, however, the difference between our wants and our needs. Most people want to feel good and avoid discomfort and pain. We may not get all that we want. But by trusting in Christ, our attitudes and appetites can change from wanting everything to accepting his provision and power to live for him.
Jesus Tells Us is from the Jesus Calling 365 devotions for kids.
THE WORLD…we see history
Jonathan Edwards
JONATHAN EDWARDS, AMERICA’S MOST FAMOUS SERMON. DEUTERONOMY 32:35 THEIR FOOT SHALL SLIP IN DUE TIME.
There were limited forms of entertainment in colonial times, and little reason for people to gather in assemblies except in times of crisis. That’s why churches were so important, and sermons were so influential. People gathered weekly to fellowship, pray, worship, and learn from Scripture. Many of the events that shaped the mind-set of colonial America occurred because of biblical sermons preached by gifted pastors. No one embodies that more, than Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan was the fifth child (and the only son of eleven children) of Rev. Timothy Edwards and Esther Stoddard Edwards. He was born on October 5th, 1703, in West Windsor, Connecticut. Jonathan was a brilliant child, mastering Latin, Greek, and Hebrew by age twelve. He entered Connecticut Collegiate School (today Yale University), and graduated valedictorian of his class. At age seventeen, while working on his master’s degree, he
Began meditating on 1 Timothy 1:17: “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” That verse sparked a spiritual experience that made Edwards feel “swallowed up” in God. Scholars describe this as his conversion experience. Edwards wrote: “From about that time, I began to have a new kind of apprehensions and ideas of Christ, and the work of redemption, and the glorious way of salvation by Him.” At age eighteen, Edwards took his first pastorate in a presbyterian church in New York City, and he became a professor at Yale from 1724 to 1726. In November 1726, his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, asked Edwards to join him in the pastorate at Northampton Church, and when his grandfather passed away, Edwards became the sole pastor of the church. In the mid-1730’s, a revival broke out in Northampton, and in 1740, the great evangelist George Whitefield came to preach. His visit further enflamed Edwards to give himself to the cause of the revival. The next year Edwards prepared a sermon titled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” based on Deuteronomy 32:35. This passage is part of the song of Moses, composed near the end of Moses’s life, in which he predicted blessings for Israel and judgement on those who rejected God. Using poetic language, Moses warned the Israelites against drifting from the ways of the Lord, for such backsliders will discover their foot will slip in due time, and the day of calamity will come swiftly. Many of Edwards, sermons were uplifting, positive, and full of the grace and love of God. But on this occasion, his sermon was a warning against taking God for granted or rejecting His entreaties. In a calm tone, he warned his listeners:
The WORD…we see Jesus, His Story!
Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day, the sharpest sight cannot discern them. This that you have heard is the case of every one of you that are out of Christ-that world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is a dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God, there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open, and you have nothing to stand upon, nor anything to take hold of, there is nothing between you and hell but the air. Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell, and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell than a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock. And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open, and stands in calling and crying with loud voice to poor sinners. In the pews, Edwards words stuck with supernatural force. People began to moan, to weep audibly, and even to scream. The ensuing revival became part of the Great Awakening, a movement of the Holy Spirit over New England and the Colonies. The Great Awakening in the American Colonies was part of a much broader revival that swept over the Western church in those days. In England the revival is commonly known as the Wesley Revival, in Germany it became known as Pietism. These three great revival movements changed history, awakening the church in Germany, saving England from going down the path of the French Revolution, and giving America the moral and spiritual impetus to become a free and independent nation. How we need another Great Awakening today!
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