We are Weak but God is Faithful

*Read 1 Thess. 5:23-28*

I don’t know what you are going through. Maybe someone has been unfaithful to you. Maybe you have not kept your word. Maybe the bottom has fallen out of your business and you don’t know what comes next. Maybe you have lost your job and you don’t know where the next meal is coming from. Maybe you have lost your health or you're losing or have lost your kids or your spouse (literally or figuratively) and you don’t know what to do, which way to turn. People are not perfect. But God is. He is faithful to all His promises. He is loving in all His ways and kind in all His deeds. There is hope even if you do not see it right now.

Maybe you are at the end of your rope and feel like your back is up against the wall. Good. Now God has your attention, the way He didn’t have when things were going so well and you were always successful and everything you touched turned to gold. Not He can get to work on the real stuff He was trying to get you to see before. Now you are awake.

Call it a crisis of the soul, a crisis of faith, a struggle for control, learning Christ, call it what you will – but when God gets your attention, when you are called out of your zone into His, there is a clarity that cannot be had in times of ease. There is a substance that appears that cannot be gained in times of plenty. It is the paring down of resources, the taking away of strength, the elimination of distractions that God brings about when He is purifying someone’s soul.

And He does it all for His glory and your good. He is faithful. He will do it. Do what? Sanctify you. Set you apart for Himself. To worship Him. To serve Him. To glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.

I think that is what He did with Job and I think that is what He did with Paul and every other person He has used a great deal.

It is a source of comfort, assurance, encouragement to know that we do not have to do it by ourselves. God is in control. He is sovereign. We are called to cooperate, that is all. Do what we are called to do. God will do “it” – His work of sanctification and preservation. He will do what He has pruposed in your life and He will do it in His good and perfect time. He will do it for His glory and your good. You can be sure of that.