This week’s message is from PJ Joy, a new friend. Last week was from my granddaughter, Sarah Peyton Ellerman. I believe you’ll be enriched and encouraged.
More than you can handle = Reliance on God
2 Corinthians 1:8-9
“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”
As with Paul and with Joseph there is a time and there will be seasons when “God will put more on you than you can bear or handle”. This is the time he wants to strip you of you. He wants to break you of your own self-dependence. He wants to remove your sense of self-sufficiency, your independence. Our God will in fact wear you down until you cry, cry and cry and until you have reached a point of total dependence on HIM – (Pastor Tony Evans)
We see this in the scripture even in the book of Job, who lost almost everything; his livestock, his land, his home and even his children. But in his crisis Job never sinned against God with his words (Job 2:10). Alone, man cannot handle extreme stress, pain and heartbreak. Job maintained his sense of integrity and dependence on God similar to Paul and Joseph in their seasons of trial.
When God disappoints you just when HE looked like HE was coming through for you, HE does so to increase your awareness of your dependency on HIM and not you. It’s good news when your human connections can’t help, your money can’t buy you out OR you find yourself thrown onto GOD alone. That’s the best place you can be because that’s when God finally gets the chance to be GOD to you.
The take-away is that If you are in a place of uncertainty and extreme trial, be encouraged for our GOD is indeed alive, HE will come through and HE will deliver. Continue to cling onto HIM, cry to HIM, ask HIM to come to the rescue, for HE will, as HE is doing a work in you for HIS glory. Amen!
I praise you and worship you in the storm LORD, for you alone are my HOPE and my DELIVERANCE. Amen!
Be blessed!