Tried With Fire

You have real and obvious limits to your wisdom, power, and righteousness. But your heavenly Father is infinite in wisdom, and infinite in power, and is the only source of true righteousness. God has no boundaries, edges, or limitations. In his authority, he bows to no one. You are riddled with imperfections, but God is perfect in every way. Therefore, the key to rest is not in continually lying to yourself in a futile effort to convince yourself you are strong. No, it is when you humbly embrace your foolishness, weakness, and sin that you are in the best position to know peace of heart and to live productively in this broken-down house. So let your smallness drive you to the One who alone is great. There you will experience that he is not only great in wisdom, power, and holiness, He is great in grace, and he will give you what you need. It is not your job to be mighty, not is it within your capacity. That role is reserved for God alone....

In this broken world you need a place to run for comfort, encouragement, motivation, strength, and rest. There is no better place to run than into the arms of the One who reigns over it all for your sake. No, you won't always understand. Yes, there will be moments when life will seem overwhelmingly difficult. Sure, you will wonder why he has chosen you to go through what you are enduring when the person next to you seems to have it so easy. And there will be times when you are tempted to question his wisdom and love. But in those moments, determine to do this one thing. Determine to run to him and not from him. Run to him with your questions, doubts, confusion, and fear. He loves you; he will not turn you away. He wants you to know rest. This is precisely what he has told you again and again in his Word - that he is in control, so that in those moments when you are confronted with your lack of control, or when life seems out of control, you would know pea...

There is one final thing you need to know in order to understand the grace that has been bestowed on you: you are loved by a dissatisfied Redeemer. He will not rest from his work of grace until every last microbe of sin has been completely eradicated from every last cell of every last one of his children. And so he wars against sin on our behalf. We are never alone in our struggle for a single moment. We never have to deal with the temptations of a situation or relationship by ourselves. He is absolutely resolute in his determination that every one of his children will experience the complete spoils of the victory he gained over sin and death through his crucifixion and resurrection. You are blessed every day by his dissatisfaction. You are blessed every day that he does not grow discouraged, tired, or weary. You are blessed every day that he rules over all things for your sake. You are blessed every day that to cease from any of this he would have to deny himself, an...

God's anger is the anger of grace. It is not the violent anger of unbridled fury. God's anger always works to right what is wrong. That is what grace does. This gracious anger has two sides to it: justice and mercy. In the gracious anger of justice, God works to punish wrong, but he does even more… He will not rest until evil is no more and justice and righteousness reign forever and ever! There is also another side to his gracious anger. It is the anger of mercy. In mercy he works to convict … he works to forgive … he works to empower … he works to deliver … until every microbe of sin is completely eradicated from every cell of the heart of every one of his children. Where do we see both sides of God's anger coming together in one moment? On that hill outside the city gate where Jesus hung. That is where we see justice and mercy kiss. As he hung there, Jesus bore the full weight of the justice of God's anger. He paid the penalty our sin required. And on the c...

The Bible is not a higher-plane tome about some mystical life of spiritual devotion. It does not teach blissful separation from the brokenness of everyday life. No, the Bible is a book about this world. It is a gritty, honest book… In both its diagnoses and its descriptions, the Bible is honest about life in a fallen world. This honesty is a sign of God's love…. In being honest, the Bible welcomes you to be honest as well. In its refusal to minimize, diminish, or deny the harsh realities of this broken-down house, the Bible calls us to face the facts as well. Broken-Down House , Paul David Tripp, Shepherd Press, 2009, pp. 26, 29-30.