Good day everyone. Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice! I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately who are really going through some stuff. I know that all of them read these messages so today’s meal is dedicated to them. It’s a message that I have shared before in some way shape or form over the years. What some of us fail to realize is we’re going to school and the message explains it all.
TODAY’S PRAYER
Father, its true we may be the only “Bible” some people ever read. Please help us be a living testament that is worth reading. Please work through us and help us be a light and a shelter for our non-believing friends, neighbors, coworkers. We are here today, yielded to your will, and asking you to use us to open the eyes of someone who has been blinded his or her whole life. What an incredible blessing it would be to know we are the instrument you used to bring a person into Your Kingdom. Lord we want to hide your Word in our hearts so that the Holy Spirit can bring it to remembrance at all the right times, that the words that come forth from our mouths would honor you and point other people to you. May you be lifted high and exalted, praised, and worshiped above all. In Jesus’ name we submit this prayer. Amen.
Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed, and the ears of those who hear will listen (Isaiah 32:3).
Let’s eat.
THE UNIVERSITY OF ADVERSITY
“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:12-13).
During my spiritual journey I’ve observed a principle: The pathway to leadership almost always takes us through the valley of adversity. We see this principle not only in the story of Joseph, who endured thirteen years of adversity, but also in the lives of many other leaders in both the Old and New Testament.
Moses was raised in the royal splendor of Pharaoh’s household in Egypt, but he was forced to flee and spend 40 years in desert exile before God spoke from a burning bush and called him to lead the Hebrew people out of slavery. Joshua spent the years of his youth as a slave in Egypt and his middle-aged years wandering in the desert at Moses’ side. He was well acquainted with adversity when God called him to lead Israel’s armies in the conquest of Canaan. The prophet Daniel had to pass through a fiery furnace and a den of hungry lions before he could reach a place of power and influence in the Babylonian courts. And we see this same pattern played out in the lives of David, Isaiah, Amos, Hosea and other Old Testament leaders.
Turning to the New Testament, we see that even Jesus had to face adversity in the desert, suffering hunger, thirst, temptation and opposition from Satan. Only then could He begin His public ministry. The Lord’s disciples had to endure the loss of their Master, the failure of their own faith and character, and the dark days of despair between the cross and the empty tomb before they could become the founding leaders of the Lord’s church.
It’s hard to find anyone in Christian history who became a great leader without earning an advanced degree at the “University of Adversity.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Here, then, is the real problem of our negligence. We fail in our duty to study God’s Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy. ~R. C. Sproul~
WITH HOPE AND FAITH
REV. ELDER G E STERRETT
FOUNDER
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