December 7, 2003 Sunday
Seasons of Heaviness

"Now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations" - 1 Peter 1:6

What trials has God trusted you with today? If you've found yourself consistently drifting through the smooth sailing waters of life lately then you've probably drifted further away from God's divine will than you would ever want to admit. Trials are, for the flesh, anything but a cause for rejoicing, but for the soul of a child of God trials are the very platforms upon which we will rise to the greatest levels of faith in our Lord we have ever experienced; and while the trials literally make or break us, they always reveal who we really are and where we are really standing. Perhaps the reason why trials bring you so much grief is that you've fallen for satan's lie of free-faith; you've heard the good news that salvation is simply God's free gift, but you've been deceived into believing that the faith, which causes His salvation to become a personal reality, is free of personal cost. Did you come to Christ apart from a life-gripping, raging battle in your soul? If you think so, then you likely have no personal knowledge of what it means to be born again and you are, in all reality, just one of the many people today who have flippantly "come to Christ" without having even glanced at the internal destruction your sins have wrought....and in failing to experience genuine repentance you have yet to become prepared to forsake the entire world that you might gain Jesus Christ. "The kingdom of God is preached, and every man PRESSETH into it." (Luke 16:16) Pressed and squeezed tighter than a nail being driven through a shaft of thick oak....that's how it feels when a person truly repents and comes to the Master and that's exactly how we will feel even so often afterwards as He allows, "for a season", the "manifold temptations" to inflict us with heaviness. You say, "But I don't want this!"...and in saying this you've unknowingly proven to your own self how far you really have drifted. You've taken your eyes so far off His precious, blood-stained cross, where He hung only after having been beaten beyond recognition, that you've now established your own personal throne of glory from which you believe you can sit in ignorance of His soul-refining trials. You've forgotten that the only true healing in life comes through His stripes and you're not willing to be associated with such shame and sorrow. You despise His Words in John 16:33, "in the world ye SHALL HAVE tribulation" and you've fashioned your own fanciful, twisted, and false concept of what it means to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're told that Jesus Christ was "despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3) and He was "wounded...bruised...oppressed...afflicted", (Isaiah 53:5,7) but you refuse to live such a life identified with such a Savior. You are probably quick to boast of His mighty crown of Glory, but you're nowhere to be found when it's time to put on His crown of thorns. If you're rejecting the trials and temptations of Jesus Christ then don't be mistaken...you are rejecting Jesus Christ Himself. "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you, but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy." (1 Peter 4:13,14) If you won't follow Him through the sorrow, grief, and the seasons of heaviness today then why are you expecting to be one of His precious followers when He soon returns from Glory on high?