The winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified prepare the soul for glory.
HT: @cslchsnmore
Tag Archives: Trials
Our Light Affliction Which Is but for a Moment
We are such weaklings and suffering “martyrs” when even one leg hurts or a small sore swells that we can fill heaven and earth with cries and howls, grumbling and cursing. We do not see what a tiny evil such a small thing is, compared to the countless blessings that God provides. Snorers that we are, God lets us experience these minor troubles so that we may be awakened from our deep sleep and be driven by knowledge and realization to consider what would happen if the great and countless blessings present to us disappeared because God’s favor turned away from us.
Martin Luther, Commentary on Psalm 118
Persecution and the Church
Persecution is the world’s testimony to the Church’s purity. A wolf will not worry a painted sheep; a cat will not seize a toy mouse. The world may despise, but it will not persecute, a counterfeit Christian; it may scorn, but it will not burn, a hypocrite. Crucifixion is the evidence of Christliness.
F. W. Boreham, The Heavenly Octave (New York: The Abingdon Press, 1936), 110
The Storms of Life
We are sure that the Lord reigns; we are sure that the storm is guided by the hands which were nailed to the cross.
HT: @nickroark
This Light Momentary Affliction
The hour is coming when we shall be astonished to think what mere trifles were once capable of discouraging us.
HT: challies.com
Indeed, the Strangest Flower of All
Humility is a strange flower; it grows best in winter weather, and under storms of affliction.
HT: @cslchsnmore
No Cross, No Crown
Afflictions add to the saints’ glory. The more the diamond is cut, the more it sparkles; the heavier the saints’ cross is, the heavier will be their crown.
HT: @billmounce
Suffering Isn’t Redemptive
Suffering in this world is no blotting out of sin.
We Are More Than Conquerors
Here, then, is the test, here is the challenge. Does the gospel enable us to face the battle of life as it is today in such a way that we are more than conquerors — not merely conquerors but more than conquerors? Does this teaching . . . enable us not merely to put up with tribulations but to rejoice in them?
original emphasis, D. Martyn Lloyd Jones, Love So Amazing (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), p. 126.
Humility in Problems
The person who bears and suffers evils with meekness and silence, is the sum of a Christian man.
HT: @sermonindex
Life Is Worship 