by Pastor Afolabi Oladele
My fellow believers, when it seems as though you are facing nothing but difficulties, see it as an invaluable opportunity to experience the greatest joy that you can! For you know that when your faith is tested it stirs up in you the power of endurance. And then as your endurance grows even stronger, it will release perfection into every part of your being until there is nothing missing and nothing lacking. James 1:2-4 TPT
Reflecting on our text again, and considering that adversity must of necessity come – Ecclesiastes 7:14 (TLB) – can a man truly prepare for adversity? When one considers:
- the confession of Job, where the context for the days of adversity were set in Job 1:2-5; Job 3:25-26; and
- the statements of the Lord Jesus Christ in John 12:23-27 (note verse 27 in particular) which played in the details revealed in Matthew 26:39-46
the answer seems obvious. More unsettling is the realisation that foreknowledge of the adverse events is also no assurance that when they come to pass, we can stand! The Lord told His disciples in the details what was to come to pass, Matthew 26:31-34, John 16:20, 21,32. These things came to pass to the letter, yet they could not stand in the day of adversity. Three sober conclusions come from these scriptures:
- foreknowledge of coming events is no assurance that you will stand when the events happen;
- scarcely can any man prepare for adversity – Jeremiah10:23; yet
- God does prepare us – Job 33:16
What then does a man do in the day of adversity? Peter saw it first hand in the garden of Gethsemane howbeit overtaken by sleep. He summarized what to do in 1 Peter 4:19 – Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator. That’s exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did, as was set out clearly by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews in Hebrew 5:7 (NLT/TPT); and that’s what He communicated to His disciples in John 16:23-28 (TPT). That’s what the sessions on praying and praying correctly were all about.
It’s the realisation of how unprepared I am that choked me last week Sunday, coupled with the reality of the end of Judas Iscariot. On this note:
- He was called, empowered over devils making proof of the powers of the ages to come – Matthew 10:1-15; Mark 3:13-19 and Luke 6:12-16;
- Yet was lost John 17:9-12 compare with John 6:37,39,45
It is the reality that you can be lost having started well that informed the decision to have you go through the series on the book of life. Your name is written in the book of life from the foundation of the world but can be blotted out – Exodus 32:33 – just as it happened to Judas. This is the sobriety that is called for at this time. God bless you
Pastor Afolabi Oladele
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Leave a Reply