Responding under the influence of the Fruit of the Spirit during difficult circumstances provides confirmation of our conformation.
Good Morning! It is sad, but true, but most Christians choose apathy over adversity. No one naturally “enjoys” a difficult circumstance. But apathy never accomplished anything for God. If you or those students you teach develop apathy in their Christian life, you can be sure intimacy with Him will be non-existent. Author Charles C. West may have put it best when he said, “We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking only to learn that it is God who is shaking them.”
God has a school of learning for all of His student disciples. It is what we call Adversity University™. You cannot expect to live godly in Christ Jesus without suffering persecution (II Tim. 3:12). But when our relationship with the Lord is sweet and special to us, we can remain calm in the stormy sea of life.
Dr. Paul Kingsbury, my Pastor at North Love Baptist Church in Rockford, Illinois, wrote an entire book on this subject. The book is called Adversity University: The Fraternity for Eternity. It explains in great detail how God uses adversity, not primarily as chastening, but rather as training. It is this training that should be so coveted. For it is this learning process that not only gets us right with Him, but keeps us right as well.
At Reformers Unanimous, we call this process of learning “conforming by transforming.” When we reject our adversity and embrace a lifestyle of Christian apathy, we will not please God. We will seek to please others and ourselves instead. In an effort to please others rather than Him, we will find that we are unable to experience that transformation process that we so desperately need to enjoy our positions as “peculiar people.” Rather than “conforming by transforming” we will find ourselves “conforming by performing.”
I believe a lot of us spend much of our time in prayer asking God to take away the painful things in our life that are His gifts to us! We expect our gain to be replaced with greater gain when we yield it to God. Instead, we find it replaced with pain. That’s the “fellowship of his suffering.”
Prior to His path leading to Calvary, Jesus earnestly prayed, asking His Father for the cup to pass from Him. Did the cup pass? Why not? Didn’t the Father love the Son? Of course He did. But it was God’s will—His purpose and His plan—that Jesus should suffer. What Jesus experienced was God-ordained adversity.
I have some news for you today. God has some adversity planned for you. That adversity is not intended to drive you back into the world. Instead, it is meant to drive you deeper into your relationship with Jesus. It is meant to make you rely on Him more than ever before. Through that suffering, we experience intimate familiarity with Jesus. When you respond correctly to that adversity, your relationship with Him will strengthen, and it will provide confirmation of your conformation!
If you pay attention to the definition of the words as you read the New Testament, you will find some things that don’t seem to belong together. Next to words that describe great pain, suffering, distress and torture we find words of joy and peace. Let me show you some examples of what I mean.
- Paul said, “And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved” (II Cor. 12:15).
- Paul said, “Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all” (Phil. 2:17).
- Paul said, “And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost” (I Thess. 1:6).
- Peter said, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy” (I Pet. 4:12-13).
- Jesus said, “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven” (Matt. 5:11-12).
When (and only when) we know the fellowship of His sufferings on a personal and intimate level, we will come to know the power of His resurrection. When we begin to experience that pain, we know that it is time to get up out of the tomb. We are ready to walk in the Spirit, because we now know His resurrection power.
Only after experiencing that resurrection power do we have His power to face our battles. Many of us face our battles alone, relying on our own strength and power. It’s no wonder that so many Christians are living defeated lives. If the archangel Michael needed God’s power to defeat Satan (Jude 9), what on earth makes us think we can defeat the enemy on our own? Every battle we fight in His power brings victory; every battle we fight on our own brings defeat.
How did you respond to the difficult circumstances He allowed to come your way today? Are you conforming by performing? Or are you living the victorious Christian life and conforming by transforming? When we get reborn, don’t be forlorn, forsake the temptation to perform and simply warm to God’s plan to transform.
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