Growing in Our Adversity

• Welcome to the InTouch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, November 25th. Instead of just looking for ways to flee your times of trial, let’s learn how to respond in a better way. Here’s part two of When Adversity Strikes. When a child is born, we naturally expect that child to grow. And so we look forward to when the child is walking when he’s two or five, maybe 13 and then 19 and 21 and 25 and on we go because that’s the natural normal thing to happen.
• And when a child does not grow, we know we have a major problem. Well, the same thing is true in the Christian life. When you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, the Bible says you’re born again. So speaking of new birth, that is then we are to grow in our relationship to Christ. We’re to grow in our knowledge and understanding of who he is and how he works in our life.
• And we are to grow in understanding of the difficult times we have and how we are to respond. So when you look in the scripture for example the apostle Paul reminds us in this fourth chapter of Ephesians in the 15th verse he says but speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in all aspects unto him who is the head even Christ.
• And then of course Peter says a similar thing in uh second Peter and the last uh verse of of this epistle. Uh he says, “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.” Amen. So you could go all through the scriptures and there are many verses in the Bible about growing.
• That is we’re not to be saved and just stay there. If you’ll think about how little you knew about God the day you were saved and how little you knew about God month after you were saved or a year after you were saved. But when you begin to read the word of God, you begin to pray and you observe how God works in your life, how God is working in other people’s lives, you are growing in your Christian life.
• And the more you and I grow in Christlikkeness, the more we are walking in the will of God and becoming the persons he wants us to be. So I’ll give you this simple definition of adversity. It is a condition of suffering and hardship involving anguish, pressure, trials, heartaches, disappointments that is difficult times in our life.
• It can be a long stretch of time or it can be a short stretch of time depending upon the will and purpose of God. Depends upon the nature of it and depends upon how we respond to it. So, uh what’s the proper response? I have to see it from God. In other words, anything that comes, watch this now. You’ve trusted Jesus Christ as your savior.
• The Holy Spirit’s come into your life to live, to rule, and to reign. Therefore, he gives you guidance. He says, “I’ll guide you with my eye upon you. I’ll teach you in the way we should go.” So he’s doing that. So therefore, when I come to the word and I’m thinking about what’s happening, so how do I view this from God? Because God has something in mind that I know is best.
• And so we will quote our favorite verse, one of our favorite verses. God causes all things to work together for good to those who love him, to those who are called according to his purpose, you’ve surrendered your life to him in Christ, he says he’ll cause something good to happen. And if you’re in the word of God, and this is why I say you you should read some portion of the word of God every day because sometimes it’s just exactly it’s just tailorade for you because he knows what’s going to happen that day.