Longsuffering Produces Faith
Oh, how I love Jesus!
Hey, before we get started I wanted to mention I may have written this article before. I found it among my drafts and could not find a counterpart or completed version. So if I’ve repeated this article you or someone you know likely needed to read it again. Enjoy! Steve (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)
I am one of those “oh too fortunate” believers who has known Jesus my entire life. More blessed still, I am a child of God who has heard the Lord’s voice several hundred times with confirmations and 95% fulfillment of all the Lord has shared with others through my life.
The Lord has privileged me with seeing the greater picture (the grand scheme) if you will and I have seldom been in those situations where I lacked the faith to trust the Lord.
This does not mean I have not endured suffering in my life, for who has not? I broke my neck and was bed ridden in 1990, could not hold my own head up for sometime. I live with excessive levels of physical pain and physical issues not worth mentioning.
However, none of these things prepared me to watch my children go through those things our God allows in our lives so they too can learn and grow and rise from glory to glory in the process which grows faithful men and women of God.
In 2002ish the Lord gave me a vision relating to my daughter’s soon coming marriage. It was a horrible vision containing six profound truths which would destroy her marriage.
I shared this vision along with a Word of Knowledge which said my daughter would suffer a dark and difficult period for nearly three years after her divorce. I remember telling them both they did not have to get married; but I knew at that time, sadly I knew they would still push through, because, as they put it, we are in love….
Sure enough, the prophecy came to pass even as the Lord revealed it. The pains of watching my little girl go through these life lessons was considerable.
I watched my daughter and son-in-law withdraw from one another, and then I watched the whole process rip apart my daughter’s longstanding faith.
Knowing the final outcome does not always justify or appease the pain. Trust me when I write, “Hearing from God is often difficult and painful to your life and the lives of those with which you are required to share God’s Word.”
I knew my daughter would recover and yet, her mother and I hurt for her every day during the destruction of her great and joyful hope in her God and her marriage. She too had to find real peace and learn to trust her Savior, Jesus her friend.
After all, trusting the Lord is the only place real-genuine-longstanding peace comes from. (By the way, real and genuine peace are separate and distinct.)
True peace comes from knowing and trusting that Jesus loves you and keeps you and causes ALL things great and small to work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to His (God’s) purpose.
My daughter needed to re-learn this principle. Quite often head-knowledge is insufficient and requires us to grow in heart knowledge; that place in your being that knows beyond question something is true.
My son went through a similar learning process -though it was over very different means- just two years ago.
Unfortunately, some believers need to endure this process repeatedly because they mistakenly believe Christians are not to endure great suffering; foolish I know. Fortunately this does not appear to be the case with my children.
The way we learn “longsuffering” is to suffer-long or greatly for an extended period.
So here is the big pitch to this piece:
There is a grand scheme to God’s creation and it is procreation by the Creator. We are the offspring of the Living God. Adopted for sure, nevertheless the children of the Creator! Wow, I know, that’s huge.
Here is how the grand scheme plays out in quick overview:
Lucifer and the fallen angels were created to bring balance to our universe/world so humanity could fall from innocence.
Then Adam was destined to sin so humanity would need a Savior.
Later, Moses brought the Laws of God so we could know sin, for without the law sin is dead – moot (Romans 7:8) and thus the Sabbatical Laws were born.
Based on those Sabbatical laws Israel was found guilty of sinning for 490 years by not allowing their lands their rests one year every seven; therefore, the Israelites were required to go into captivity in Babylon for seventy years to adhere to the Sabbatical requirements of that law. Of course God established these laws and allowed these circumstances to take place to serve this purpose among others.
Daniel, who has now been captive in Babylon for nearly seventy years, has learned of God’s plans visa-vi the books of Chronicles and was then given by the angel Gabriel the Seventy Weeks of Daniel prophecy. The prophecy set the stage for Christ’s seven years of covenant and included all of the elements and requirements necessary to save humanity from their natural sinful state. What an amazing prophecy, I know!
King Cyrus was called out by name through a prophecy given 174 years earlier and then gave the command for the Jews to return to the Promised Lands; then Jerusalem the Temple and the walls were rebuilt; and from BC 538 to BC 3 the 7 weeks and 62 weeks elements of the Seventy Weeks of Daniel prophecy were fulfilled. Creepy cool, I know that too!
And that… is when Jesus was born in Bethlehem; in approximately BC 3 fulfilling the prophecy and the Micah 5:1-2 prophecy which has far reaching implications.
Thirty years later the Son of God is anointed by God through John the Baptist’s ministry and Jesus then begins the first half of the seven year Covenant of Jesus Christ to save humanity. The first half equaling 3½ years.
Now, here we are, children of the Living God, waiting for the final half of the covenant which will also span 3½ years. This half of the covenant is or will be called the Great Consummation also thought of as the great completion.
And today… the world is on the threshold of entering the Great Consummation starting with the 2½ years of the Tribulation Period .
Jesus brought the first half of the covenant during His ministry of 3½ years. This first half of the covenant was the blessing half of the contract: i.e. If you obey me (God) you will receive a life filled with blessings!
The Great Consummation will be the completion of this seven year covenant spanning another 3½ years in the process.
- There will be a 2½ year Tribulation Period designed to separate True-Christians (committed Christians) from pseudo-Christians (lukewarm/non-committed Christians).
- At the end of the Tribulation Period Jesus will Rapture or resurrect the Saints of God.
- Then this 2½ year Tribulation Period will be followed by a One year period for God’s Wrath. Not something anyone wants to experience or be part of, ever!
You see, the universe is all about God’s love for His children, that’s us!
We are the nuclear family of God.
The entire process teaches us and grows us into becoming the individuals God wants us to be as adult Christians.
We are only visitor on this planet and this physical life is extremely temporary.
God loves us so much He has been working towards our gathering together to be with Him for a very, very, very-very-very long time.
And still we grow.
Get prepared folks. The Tribulation Period will be extremely difficult for Believers. We will be driven out of our homes and cities and lives into some wilderness, forested or desert areas. We need to get or be ready for that eventuality.
So, God bless you and have a prepared day!
standing in the eye of the Storm will mean to Christians every-where; what will it mean to you?