Does God call you to be disingenuous, ignore reality, or live pretending your situation is fine when it isn’t?
• God only deals in reality and we should to.
• Because God is real and present with us where we are, spiritual maturity means that we don’t reinterpret His character based on our situation, but we gain clarity about our situation by looking through the lens of His character and His promises.
• We need to be honest about our pain. But there is more to be honest about.
• We gain endurance by being honest about our situation, but there is another way we can gain endurance.
• Gratitude is another key to endurance. Through His Word, God gives us clarity about how we can be honest.
Luke 17:11-19
11 On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
• Jesus heals all ten of them, but only one of them returns ” praising God with a loud voice…giving [Jesus] thanks.”
• Spurgeon >> “External religious exercises are easy enough, and common enough; but the internal matter, the drawing out of the heart in thankful love, how scarce a thing it is! Nine obey ritual where only one praises the Lord.” Spurgeon adds, “Praise is a great instructor. Prayer and praise are the oars by which a man may row his boat into the deep waters of the knowledge of Christ”
• Gratitude is rare. But also, gratitude is the overflow of a heart that genuinely beholds the mercy and grace of God towards us.
Philippians 4:4
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.
• Paul commands us to rejoice in all circumstances here and in 1 Thessalonians 5:16.
• To rejoice means that you take delight in something. So, for Paul, sitting under Roman house arrest, uncertain of the future, tells the Philippians to rejoice in the Lord always.
Romans 5:3-5
3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
• Paul cultivates gratitude by rejoicing that his circumstances are working for him in a way that can only be explained as the sovereignty of God on display.
• Paul is clinging to the hope that the Holy Spirit is bringing the reality of the power of God into the moment he is in.
Acts 16:25-34
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, 26 and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened. 27 When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” 29 And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.
• Gratitude and rejoicing raise our awareness to the ultimate reality of God to give us clarity about the moment that we are in.