Crossing the great divide

Here are the lyrics to the old hymn "It Will Be Worth It All" by Esther Kerr Rusthoi:

Oft times the day seems long, our trials hard to bear,
We're tempted to complain, to murmur and despair;
But Christ will soon appear to catch His Bride away,
All tears forever over in God's eternal day.

It will be worth it all when we see Jesus,
Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ;
One glimpse of His dear face all sorrow will erase,
So bravely run the race till we see Christ.

Sometimes the sky looks dark with not a ray of light,
We're tossed and driven on, no human help in sight;
But there is one in heav'n who knows our deepest care,
Let Jesus solve your problem – just go to Him in pray'r.

Life's day will soon be o'er, all storms forever past,
We'll cross the great divide, to glory, safe at last;
And we'll all share the joys of heav'n – a harp, a home, a crown,
The tempter will be banished, we'll lay our burden down.

It will be worth it all when we see Jesus,
Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ;
One glimpse of His dear face all sorrow will erase,
So bravely run the race till we see Christ.
One glimpse of His dear face all sorrow will erase,
So bravely run the race till we see Christ.
Till we see Christ

“Life’s a lot tougher in its reality than most evangelicals and the Charismatics want you to believe it is. If you think you’re just going to thank God for all the (troublesome) things in your life, you’re nuts. I’m sorry. God never told you to be grateful for all those things that come into your life. He says in them, in all things, give thanks. How do you do that? You look away from yourself to who God’s made you in Christ.

“Whatever you depend on to give you purpose and meaning and life, that’s what’s going to control you.

“Really the only real sin that you constantly have to deal with is the sin of unbelief. The sin of not trusting the sufficiency God has given you in Christ.

"All the other things—all the sins of the flesh Paul names— adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings—all of those are really symptoms of your lack of faith in the sufficiency of who God’s made you in Christ.

“The way you cure depression is not by focusing on the symptoms, it’s focusing on the source. The battle’s in your mind, first and foremost.

“Imaginations are designed to be programmed by our conscious mind and it’s the things in our imagination that effect our emotions.

“The devil doesn’t program them, you program them. Or you allow them to be programmed by the intake your mind is having. They can be re-programmed, re-directed by your conscious thinking. So you cast down all this uncontrolled involuntary thinking that comes into your mind. Cast it down, ‘bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.’

“The way you re-program your imagination is through the conscious application of sound doctrine. That’s the objective of sound doctrine. And that’s the only way you’re going to control what Paul calls our ‘vain imagination.’ ‘Vain’ means empty, useless thinking. Not based on truth, but based on error.”

*****

“The radio has FM and AM dial and we can choose which band we’re going to listen to:

“The one band is error, and it says, ‘Worry and worry early.’ God says, ‘Be careful for nothing.’ Don’t be anxious or worried about anything. Which station do you listen to? Truth or error? 

“God says He’s perfected forever all those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus. How are you going to get any better than that? You’re complete in Christ, ‘blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places.’ This is who God’s made you.

“Which are you going to believe? You say, ‘But look at what I’ve done,’ and God says, ‘Yeah, I know, look at what I did.’

“Where are you looking? What station are you listening to? He says, ‘Reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God.’ ”

“Bottom line, godliness with contentment is where it’s at. As Paul says, ‘I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.’

“You can’t worry and trust God at the same time. So when you’re worrying, you’re not trusting God. It’s impossible to be depressed and thankful at the same time. All you need to get out of depression is to be thankful.

“Understand that neither height, nor depth, or anything can separate you from the love of God and say, ‘I’m going to be thankful to God, in whatever happens, for who I am in Him.’ You bring those thoughts into captivity to the reality of truth, and that’s a depression-buster. The path to freedom is first you decide you want to be free.”

*****

Here’s an inspirational story of a blind teen-aged girl’s testimony at a Bible youth camp:

“She’d been blind from birth. Had never seen the light of day. She’d heard the gospel and gotten saved. The last day of youth camp, we were having a camp fire, and all the teens were giving testimony for what they thanked God for.

“One was thanking Him for the trees, and for getting him up that morning, and all that stuff, and somebody was thanking God for this and that, and this young girl got up and said, ‘You know, I want to thank God.’

“Everybody was looking at her, thinking, ‘What could this blind girl be thanking God for? Blind from birth and has to live all of life blind to all around her.’

“She said, ‘I’ve been listening all week, and I’ve learned about how much God loves me. I’ve learned what He’s done for me in Christ, and what a wonderful future He’s assured me, and how He’s equipped me right now to live a resurrected life in its details.’

“She added, ‘You know, I thank God I was born blind. Because that means I have virgin eyes. The first thing I’ll ever see is the one who loved me and gave Himself for me.’

“When I heard that story, I thought, ‘You know, there’s a girl who’s got it!’ She’s so filled with the love and grace of God that self-pity is turned to thanksgiving, turned to joy unto a ‘peace that passeth all understanding.’ That’s how you have victory every single day.”