The learning experience is the certificate

The Bible teaches there is a big difference between human happiness and godly joy. What gave Paul the ability to live in whatever circumstances and have joy was from not evaluating life the way human viewpoint does, on the basis of simple happiness.

"Human happiness is about meeting personal expectations and having circumstances match desires," explains Preacher Richard Jordan. "It means I’m happy when life and others respond the way I want them to, or expect them to respond.

"God’s purpose in your life has nothing to do with making you happy. People say, ‘Well, certainly God wants me to be happy.’ If God’s goal was to make/keep you happy, then suffering wouldn’t have any real purpose in your life. In fact, it would be completely counter-productive.

“Real joy is about meeting God’s expectations, not yours, and having done God’s will. God’s purpose is to use me to bring glory to His name, and in every circumstance of my life that’s my purpose, my privilege. I don’t need to look at circumstances and evaluate whether this is a place I can rejoice or not.

“Glory is an outward expression. Rejoicing is an inner attitude. So the inner attitude of joy results in me being able to express that outward demonstration of that joy in times of trouble, difficulty and pressure, or persecution.

“It isn’t enough just to say ‘tribulation works patience’; it’s KNOWING that it does that causes us to be able to have the glory—the outward expression of this joy in the midst of trouble.

“All of your joy is eventually going to have to be based in who God has made you and what He’s going to do with you in Christ. Every time in Paul’s epistles when you see the issue of hope, it’s always looking to the future. It’s a Rapture-resurrection kind of a look.

"Always talking to God about what His word says about the circumstances I’m in gives me the ability to continually endure through the trouble because I’ve got a hope out there in the end that fills my heart with rejoicing. My joy is going to come from the sufficiency of His grace."

*****

“We instinctively withdraw our hand if it’s getting burned, right? But when it comes to tribulation, God’s attitude and perspective is, ‘No, I don’t want you to behave like that,’ ” explains Preacher Alex Kurz.

“There’s a direct correlation with the activity of godliness and the sanctifying effect that tribulations now have in life. It isn’t something that we dread. It isn’t something we run away from. It’s something that we can not only welcome, but we recognize we’re more than conquerors. God says there is a specific provision He gives to us so we can triumph in life.

“Instead of looking at tribulation as something to avoid, we’re to see its value. It’s no longer an enemy. I don’t have to fear or dread. I now can welcome those tribulations.

*****

“Hebrews 5:7 is a powerful, powerful verse of our Lord Jesus Christ: ‘Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared.’

“He was a man of sorrows. Jesus was acquainted with grief. You don’t think He was touched by the effects of living in a sin-cursed world or the emotional and psychological trauma; the rejection and alienation. He knows--He feels hurt. He feels pain.

“Verse 5:8 says, ‘Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.’

“He didn’t succumb. While He’s in pain, while He’s in anguish, while He’s experiencing the trauma, you know what He chooses to do? ‘I’m going to learn.’ It’s a learning experience!

*****

“The theme of II Corinthians actually has to do with sufferings, tribulations and infirmities. It’s probably the darkest epistle the Apostle Paul wrote.

“He starts chapter 1 with, ‘Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.’

“Drop down to verse 9: ‘But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:
[10] Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us.’

“We’re going to learn to trust what God has to say about tribulations. Our flesh and our emotions, which are committed to avoiding all that . . . we now can learn what God says about it. So now we can tackle it with this renewed understanding; this renewed knowledge about it. Don’t fear it; don’t dread it.

“Paul says, ‘I’m now going to trust what God says.’ If He says tribulation is ordained to be a spiritual benefit and blessing, are we going to believe what He says about it? We have to readjust the way we think about the problems of life.

“God will not remove your affliction. Paul says three times, ‘Lord Jesus, please,’ and Christ responds, ‘Paul, you aren’t thinking about what’s happening in your life.’ Jesus Christ reminds Paul about the available inner-man capacity he already had: ‘Paul, you’ve already got something; I don’t need to do any more.’

“God will not miraculously reach down into your life and remove your problem or shield you from the problem. He doesn’t give us immunity or a hedge of protection. God said, ‘It’s a blessing.’

“What do we KNOW? ‘Hey, it’s going to work something!’ When bad things happen in your life, it has absolutely nothing to do with God’s displeasure. It has everything to do with God’s delight in producing something in the core of your inner man.

“ ‘If I’m going to glory,’ Paul says, ‘I’m going to glory in the things concerning my infirmities. God’s not angry with me; He’s not angry with you.’

" ‘So wait a minute, Paul, why do you look like a physical mess?!’ Paul’s going to say, ‘You know what, that’s my certificate.’

“Acts 14:22 says, ‘Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.’

“It says, ‘We must.’ Is that optional? It’s a reality. The sooner we accept the fact that tribulation is part and parcel of our experience and edification, the sooner we can employ the very doctrines God says we need in order to glory in and see the value, worth, profit and advantage in it.”

(new article tomorrow)