Author: Brian Burdett

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” – 1 Peter 4:12-13

Well, we can’t say that we weren’t warned!!! Fiery trials are an expected part of the Christian life. There’s nothing enjoyable about them, but they are normal. Hard times will come upon us as we walk in faith. We shouldn’t seek them out, but we should know they will find us anyway. This makes complete sense – our Lord Jesus went through terrible trials. Why should His followers be exempt?

Scripture is consistent in teaching that we shouldn’t just grit our teeth, complain, and trudge through trials when they come. No, we’re told over and over again to rejoice during them! We are to rejoice during terrible tests of our faith and our faithfulness. We aren’t to rejoice because we like pain or because we’re supposed to pretend the trials don’t hurt. These trials hurt terribly!

We are to rejoice precisely because they hurt so bad! We are to rejoice because in the fiery trials we share in the sufferings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus endured every temptation and suffered terribly as He was betrayed, arrested, abandoned, humiliated, tortured, condemned, and brutally killed. Jesus suffered terribly as He endured God’s rightful wrath toward our sin on the cross.

As we suffer in Christ, we share in Christ’s suffering and it reminds us that we will also share in His glory. We will share in His resurrection. We will share in His eternal presence. We will share in His inheritance in heaven and the new earth. The fiery trials of our lives, when experienced in Christ, point us to the eternal joy, comfort, peace, and delight that lies ahead of everyone who believes in Jesus. Rejoice!

“The one who lives with integrity will be helped,
but one who distorts right and wrong will suddenly fall.”
– Proverbs 28:18

Increasingly we live in a truth-optional culture. It seems that truth is quickly thrown overboard to advance nearly every cause on almost every side of every issue. If truth is inconvenient or facts don’t fit the preferred narrative, they’re ignored. Lies are simply made larger and louder. The end apparently justifies the means and power and victory seem to be our highest goals.

At the same time, right is increasingly called wrong, wrong is increasingly declared to be right, evil is celebrated and good is castigated. Good is bad, bad is good. This is the world in which we live today.

As Christians, we must NEVER participate in any of this! It doesn’t matter the goals we could accomplish if we participated. It doesn’t matter the consequences of refusing to participate. As servants of the God who cannot lie, we must live with integrity, confident in God’s help, even if the rest of the world goes against us. Our integrity can never be stolen from us, but we can very easily surrender it. We must not speak lies, share lies, repost lies, shade truth, tweet or retweet false information, or support those who do. We must be intentional and diligent in checking anything we pass along to make sure we don’t foolishly surrender our integrity and Christian witness.

Likewise, there’s only one source and standard of right and wrong and it doesn’t change. God’s Word, the Bible, must be our source of right and wrong. We must never celebrate or participate in the ongoing distortion of right and wrong. We’ll likely pay a near-term price for that, possibly quite severe. We’ll certainly be unpopular, considered backward, primitive, and cruel. Nonetheless, to do otherwise guarantees a sudden and eternal fall one day. Great will be our ruin if we twist the truth and switch right and wrong!

“Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.” – James 5:11

As a church we’ve spent a good deal of time considering the steadfastness of Job. There is great blessing in steadfastness! When we stay the course, faithfully following God wherever He leads, despite long periods of suffering, loneliness, anxiety, and fear, God blesses and rewards that. God honors our worship, prayer, service, and evangelism during hard seasons.

As we all know, God doesn’t move on our schedule. He moves on His own perfect timetable that works everything together for good. We must never give up hope, for we know that God will triumph, reward, and bless in the end. During long, dark, and difficult times we are strengthened by the knowledge that God knows and sees everything that we do for Him. He is most glorified when His people remain faithful for as many months, years, decades, or centuries as it takes to accomplish His will.

So be patient this winter. Be steadfast. Sing and praise and pray, even when you don’t feel like it. Worship God whether you feel like it or you don’t. Serve and share Christ even when you hurt and know that an eternity spent with our compassionate and merciful Lord lies before you in Christ!

“Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’” – James 4:15

We’ve all been vividly reminded of how little control we actually have over the world and even over our lives! There is actually wonderful blessing in this. It’s so easy, as followers of Jesus, to accidentally live lives that are virtually indistinguishable from those of atheists. We make our plans, pursue our dreams, and build our empires, as if we were in complete control. If we pray about them at all, our prayers mainly ask God to bless whatever we’ve already decided to do.

2020 has been a clear reminder that God is in charge. He’s the leader. We’re the followers. Nothing about this year has taken Him by surprise. He’s filled this year with Kingdom opportunities to serve and glorify Him if we’re willing to make His plans and priorities more important than ours. Thus, we’re slowly being forced to learn to begin our grand plans with, “If the Lord wills…”

This is a great first step toward really submitting our plans, dreams, and goals to those of God and to really living a life of adventure that follows God rather than running ahead of Him. We’re learning, painfully, to be more flexible and sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. We’re learning to hold onto our plans loosely and our Lord tightly. We’re learning not to take many things for granted, but instead to treasure our God Who is our ever present help. What a wonderful and unexpected blessing of a year like no other!

“But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” – James 3:8-10

The tongue is truly a restless evil! The evidence of this is everywhere in our social media, news outlets, and even casual conversations. We see it in our leaders, in our movements, and in the breaking down of our civil culture. From the sound and fury, it would appear that the United States has divided into two groups that each sincerely desires for the other group to be swallowed by the earth. That isn’t sustainable! Our political discourse has moved from principled disagreement to absolute negation of those on the other side as unacceptably monstrous. This path leads to utter destruction as the deadly poison of millions of tongues spreads and destroys this nation.

As Christians we can’t be responsible for anyone else’s tongue, but we must be responsible for our own! A Christian cannot be cursing, denigrating, dehumanizing, or insulting another human. Period. Ever. We simply can’t. We must never sink to that level, because when we speak we represent Jesus Christ! If you’re praising God on Sunday, you better not be cursing people on Monday!

We must learn to live by the Holy Spirit and let Him teach us how to disagree with a person, policy, party, or position without attacking that person as a human being. We must discipline ourselves in the Spirit to reject and resist false or sinful perspectives without speaking evil ourselves. In the power of the Spirit, we must learn not to respond to the poisonous words of others with poisonous words of our own. As Christians, we need to speak words of life and renewal, even as we firmly and boldly proclaim the truth of the Gospel and the goodness of God’s design for human flourishing.