CAN WE HANDLE HIS BLESSINGS?

Our Lord wants to give us everything:

·       …For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23 ESV)

We have been appointed to be co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). He will share with us everything He has. However, for now, we cannot now contain everything that He wants to give us without getting proud. Because of this, He had to even humble the Church’s greatest missionary, Paul, with an unspecified affliction:

·       So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10 ESV)

Even Job, the most righteous man on all the earth, had to be humbled before he was able to receive greater blessing. Through a series of questions, God humbled Job by showing him how little he knew. Job got the lesson and understood that his bringing indictments against God was a matter of pure arrogance. He therefore repented of his self-righteousness:

·       Then Job answered the LORD and said: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted…I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know…I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;  therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:1-6)

In his arrogance, Job though he understood more than he actually did understand. Once he humbled himself, God exalted him. He then turned to Job’s three “friends” to humble them:

·       After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7-8)

Job had spoken rashly against God, more than his three friends had done. However, Job repented, and his sins were forgiven and “forgotten.” Job was now given the honor to pray for these friends.

What would have happened without God’s severe discipline? Job and Paul would have become increasingly proud and self-righteous. I know that the same would happen to me without the Lord’s discipline. I therefore thank Him even for the painful trials.