Last week I taught a message from my own pulpit which ended with an emphasis on ‘knowing you’re special in God’s eyes.’ Of course, this message was reserved for believers only, since there exists a special love for those He chooses to give entrance into His family. This encouragement came on the heels of our study in the Book of Hebrews, where the local assembly was distracted from their first love (Christ) due to the stress of being attacked from without.
When you’re being attacked, or even suffering affliction, you rarely feel special in a good way. Maybe you feel targeted, but that’s especially painful, not encouraging.
This blog is about deliverance from lies. One of the greatest lies the devil peddles is that God’s children are neither special, nor should they ever feel as such. He uses doubt to drive a wedge between our Father and His family. He manipulates the truth in our minds, planting just the right seeds when our guards are down. One of the great examples of this is convincing a person who’s suffering that somehow this means God doesn’t love them (How could He allow such things to happen to God-fearing children of His???). He uses antagonists in our lives to ask the so-called tough questions (they’re really not that tough to answer if you know the truth), like, “How can a loving God allow child abuse? Sounds like He doesn’t love that person at all to me!” It’s the age-old attack on God’s character and nature.
The point is that Satan wishes nothing more than to dissuade God’s children from abiding in His love, experientially. He doesn’t want any of us to feel special, or privileged, or loved by our Father. He hates the very idea of that kind of unity in a family, so he finds ways to point out how our suffering is proof that God must not love us that much. As in, if we were special, He'd pamper us, or if we were His children, He’d protect us from all harm, and so on and so forth.
The truth is that without suffering (aka discipline) we’d never mature in the faith (see last week’s blog, The Value of Affliction, for more on this). Even Christ had to suffer in order to relate to us as our Mediator.
Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.
- Hebrews 5:8-9
Jesus’ suffering sets the stage for our own. The principle is simple: growth requires suffering. Humans never change unless an outside force motivates them to do so. In other words, we are as Sir Isaac Newton might say, “Bodies in motion that remain in motion.” We humans will continue doing the same thing indefinitely until otherwise influenced. The best example is with regards to our salvation: if God never chose to intervene, we’d remain lost and quite content to do so!
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
- Romans 5:6-8
Again, growth implies suffering. This is an undeniable doctrine in Holy Scripture. God’s desire is that we grow. Why? Because He loves us and desires the best for His children. Like any good father, He knows that His children won’t choose to grow on their own, so He ordains suffering as the impetus. It turns out, this is quite an effective tool!
Think about the greatest eras of growth in your own life. What does every instance have in common? Some kind of suffering (e.g., failure), I’d imagine. Let me get practical for a moment. Have you ever gotten physically stronger? What did it take? Suffering at the gym or on the job where there was some form of lifting or exercise, right? Have you ever gotten smarter? What did that take? Suffering through schoolwork and/or studying, right? Have you ever grown spiritually without some kind of test or trial? The point is that growth implies suffering, which holds true, especially in the spiritual realm.
Consider that if we were already perfect, we wouldn’t need to be sanctified (aka changed in any way). The whole concept of sanctification implies adjustment because we are not yet perfected. To say we’re born imperfect is tantamount to conceding we are born in sin (a fundamental truth in Holy Scripture is that we are born totally depraved – even our will is in bondage to our nature – I recommend reading On the Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther if you want to dig your heels into this topic).
Since we’re born in sin we need to be changed once saved (purified in the experiential sense). Sanctification is painful because while our hearts have been changed, our minds are still bound by precepts and doctrines we adopted as our own while still dead in our sins. As I alluded to earlier, we humans aren’t so keen on change, so God must, in so many ways, force us to change through the very effective tool He utilizes, namely suffering. We suffer the idea of change as well as the action, itself, once it commences. If we don’t shrink away from it, we look to God to fulfill His promise:
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
- Hebrews 12:11
God has a plan for those whom He loves, whom He calls by name. “The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out,” (John 10:3). God sees our sin but calls us out by name, to His glory. Conversely, Satan knows our name but calls us out by our sin.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
- 1 Peter 5:8
And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.
- Revelation 12:9-11
Do not succumb to the schemes of our great accuser, the devil. Oh, he knows your name, my friend, but he prefers to call you out by your sin! This is not love; rather, it is pure hatred. Any thought that cedes power to satanic corruption ought to be extinguished like a fiery dart. “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). You have been called by name, so, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).Your sin has already been paid for, my friend. Christ has paid the price. Own it and be free!
Love in Christ,
Ed Collins
