If you could hear it with your heart, then please let me speak into the depths of your soul: Don’t lose faith and don’t give up. This life, with all of its ups and downs; the ebb and flow of both triumphs and tragedies are working on your behalf. Even things that tend to afflict our minds are working for us, or as Paul wrote 2 Corinthians 4:17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
Peter presented the trial: 1 Peter 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
Can you imagine that your faith would be put on trial? A court trial has elements of witnesses, a judge, and a jury. Your faith will be challenged, opposed, and questioned. In another sense, your faith will be put through a furnace of fire, burning away impurity and pollutants. The examples go on, but the truth remains: These things are working on your behalf and you must not give up.
I would take issue with Paul’s words in which he submitted that our affliction is light except that compared to Eternal life and the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, he is right. Whatever the affliction, issue, or conflict, all of it is a light thing compared to the moment when He Who was before all time shall appear and we shall be raptured into Glory.
The famed missionary once wrote: “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to obtain what he cannot lose.” Therefore, I make this plea: Don’t lose sight of the prize, but press forward. Whatever it takes to be saved, that is what you must do. Whatever it takes to be present for worship and the Word, that is what must be done. There is something wonderful ahead that can only be seen through our spiritual sight. 2 Corinthians 4:18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Pastor Jeffrey Harpole