Last week we discussed how change is a healthy process that every living thing experiences. The challenges that change brings to our lives can help us to be a wineskin that can hold new wine without bursting. The great, Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn once said, “Even biology teaches us that perpetual well-being is not good for any creature.” Biology also teaches that when there is an excessive resistance to change, it is a sign that the death process has begun.
The same is true intellectually and spiritually. All healthy, growing things will change and expand. When we begin to resist change, we are actually resisting our own growth and endangering our own future. Many of the needed changes and the mentality that cannot only embrace change, but thrive on it, often come from the problems and challenges in our lives. This is why the apostle Paul wrote in Acts 14:22, "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God." Tribulations really are doorways into the kingdom. That is why “the great tribulation” is going to be the very doorway to the kingdom of God coming to the earth. This is not something we should fear, but rather embrace as the unprecedented spiritual opportunity that it is. As we have noted before, this is articulated well in
Daniel 11:31-32:
"And by smooth words he will turn to godlessness those who act wickedly toward the covenant, but the people who know their God will display strength and take action.”
Here we see that the very time the “abomination of desolation” is being set up, those “who know their God” will not lie down, but will “display strength and take action.” All of the evil and problems, which are arising in the world, are being used by the Lord to prepare His people for the times ahead. They are not being prepared to make us run and hide, but to “display strength and take action.” Such has always been the nature of true prophets and true saints.
As we proceed toward the end of this age, just about the only thing that we will be able to count on is change. The very foundations of the world systems will be shaking—even those that until now have been the most stable, as we read in Hebrews 12:26-27:
And this expression, "Yet once more," denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
Because of this, is it imperative that we not only learn to adapt to changes, but that we even come to appreciate them as great opportunities to grow. Every change we go through helps to remove the things that are not of God, and helps us to find the things that are, as stated in Hebrews 12:28-29:
shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an
acceptable service with reverence and awe;
for our God is a consuming fire.
Change and shaking is inevitable in the world, but we have a kingdom that cannot be shaken. If we have built our lives on the kingdom, then regardless of what happens in the world, we will not be shaken by it. In the world we must expect change, and learn to take advantage of it. We can do this because we have a moral and spiritual foundation that is rock solid. If we have built our lives on the kingdom of God, neither our peace nor our prosperity should depend on what is happening in the world.
It is from this foundation that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached. When the gospel of the kingdom is preached, it will go into the entire world because the whole world is in such darkness and confusion that they will be desperate for it.
So, to practically be prepared for what is coming upon the world we need to start seeing the changes that are thrown at us, the upsetting of our “vessels” as we read in Jeremiah 48:11-12 a few weeks ago, as the hand of the Lord. How different would we be if everything that now upsets us began to be viewed as the Lord Himself training us? We would start to count every trial as joy, just as we are exhorted in James 1:2-4,12.
knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.
Just as muscles will not grow without the exercise that pushes them beyond their present limits, and will even atrophy if they are not exercised at all, our faith is the same way. Every trial that we are going through, God is allowing for a purpose—our maturity and growth. If we are going to be prepared for our purposes, we cannot continue to waste these trials, but seize each one and determine to grow from it.
Faith does not get angry or impatient when challenged. True faith counts the opportunity
as joy.