Lessons for Living from the Bible in Everyday English by Dennis Magee

By His infinite wisdom God created and sustains everything, from the vast universe to the smallest creature on this earth. He created a world with perfect conditions for providing us with everything we need for comfortable, happy lives, a garden of Eden.

When the timing was right God created man in his image, the only creature who could be aware of and praise God for all that He did in creating and sustaining him.

God wants a relationship with every person He created. But people by nature want nothing to do with God or His commands He gave us for our own good. Because He is infinitely holy and righteous our sinfulness had to be dealt with, which He did by allowing His son Jesus, himself equal to God, to die in our place to satisfy His justice. In so doing God gave the most and best He possibly could for us. As an added act of grace He calls people to faith in Jesus.

This world is ruled by satan, who persecutes those who follow Jesus. Jesus says “take up your cross daily and follow me.” Followers of Jesus will experience this persecution in the form of trials and difficulties in daily life, that cause people to question God and their faith.

One of the hallmarks of Christian living is thankfulness to God, regardless of our circumstances, for drawing us to Himself by means of faith in Jesus, for an eternity in heaven.

Another hallmark is that of daily growth in spiritual strength and maturity. This happens as we allow God to use the ups and downs of daily life in this satan-ruled world to help us in this daily growth process. As Paul says, “consider it pure joy when you suffer trials of many kinds; this testing of your faith builds perseverance, and perseverance must finish its work to make you mature and complete, not lacking in anything.” We can rely on God’s strength that He gives us as we ask for more faith to endure our trials and to persevere with the right attitude. This means to never lose faith, trust and patience in the wise goodness of God, convinced that as we pass through each set of trials the ultimate outcome for us and our loved ones will be good because God loves us. Outstanding examples of this are given in the lives of Job, Paul and Jesus himself.

A third hallmark is growing in our knowledge of God. This process happens as we grow in the first two hallmarks, thankfulness and daily growth, along with repeated study of God’s word.

The fourth hallmark, which is dependent upon the first three, is bearing fruit for God. We are told by Paul that God’s grace in our lives teaches us that our salvation should produce a life of good works. This means living a life committed to obedience to God and humble service to everyone, Christian and non-believer alike.

And so when we pray to God for help in specific circumstances, we can’t expect Him to answer us according to our perceived needs or our timing. God recons time different than we do. But as we trust God we know that He hears our prayers. We are told “trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding”. We are also told “be anxious for nothing, but in all things by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, bring your requests before God, and the peace of God which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And “cast all your cares on Him because He cares for your”. This means that God will give us grace, strength, and faith to face each day’s new challenges and troubles and realize that whatever He allows to happen in each of our lives is for our own good, to help us grow in the likeness of Christ.

We are told in the book of Job that some suffering is a result of unseen spiritual battles going on for people’s souls between God and satan, along with all the devil’s forces of evil.

And so we need always to trust in the wise goodness of God even when circumstances in our lives arise that don’t make sense to us. It all does make sense to God, who alone has the big picture. We understand only a tiny fraction of all that God is and does and we need to constantly trust in Him.

We need to put life’s daily problems in perspective and realize that God is using them for our growth in the faith, and also realize that these trials and their duration are short, and are nothing compared to the eternal joy we’ll have with Him.

Continual prayer, Bible reading, attending a good Bible-preaching Church, and fellowship with other believers are powerful weapons in our walk with Jesus.

Finally, we need to remember that our growth in faith is not an even, linear process. For every two steps forward our faith enables us to make, we’ll take one back as we fail due to our sin and weakness. But we need only to persevere, and we can be assured of continual and ultimate spiritual growth and maturation. We are all on the same journey and will finally arrive when our life ends and we see Jesus; only then will our struggles be over as we are transformed into His likeness. We can be joyful and praise God knowing we are on the right path, and even though we fail continually, we can take comfort in that at least we care enough to try.