“I don’t see why God is putting me through … all this suffering … Why doesn’t He just … take me home … now? I am a Christian.” Lori, 21, was severely paralyzed in an accident two and a half years ago. Since then she has gone from one hospital to another. The doctors have done all they can. Now they are deliberating where to send her next. Her parents can’t take her in. Independent living centers are overcrowded and have long waiting lists. Her respirator puffed and wheezed as she labored to speak between breaths.
Why do we have to fight the battle to be holy? Worldly wars bring out the worst passions in people, but Christian warfare brings out the best.
1. Peace and Warfare.
2. Pleasing God.
a. The sign of Life.
b. The Prelude to Glory.
3. The Glory of Sacrifice.
4. We Battle for Others.
5. Encouraging Fellow Believers.
6. A Testimony to Eternity–the power of God to sustain is shown more
clearly if appropriated in the lives of tempted and tested people.
7. Learning Through Suffering.
8. No Shortcuts.
“You see, Lori,” Joni began to explain, “I had a friend named Denise when I was in the hospital. She lay in bed for eight years, blind and paralyzed. In much worse condition than you. She hung in there, striving to be holy despite the odds.” There was a long silence on the other end and Joni knew Lori was listening intently. “Denise died after eight years in that bed. My human logic said, ‘God, You should have taken her on the shortcut. What did all her striving accomplish for the handful of nurses and doctors who happened to know her?’ But then I read Eph. 3:10, which says that God uses our lives like a blackboard on which He chalks lessons about His grace and His power to sustain. And He does it for the benefit of angels and demons … maybe not people, but quadrillions of unseen beings.”
I am relieved that God has not zapped us into automatic holiness. Instead, He has pushed us down the path of practical holiness to reach the unsaved, to build up believers, and to instruct the spirits in the heavenly realm.