God's Developer

Come, sit, and enjoy a cup of tea or coffee in the comfort of the Lord:  "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice."  Ephesians  4:31

                       "And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also."  Romans  5:3

     It takes a telescopic faith to be able to say  "we glory in tribulations."  One must be able to look ahead and visualize the end purposes of trials and tribulations, and rest in the promise of Romans 8:28.  Every one of our trials and testings is known to God, is permitted by God, and has a purpose in the development of our Christian character.

     Many of you own a camera.  They are made so simple today that one needs to know nothing about photography to take good pictures.  Just snapping the picture is easy enough, but to develop the film takes a knowledge of photography.  A film is a piece of material covered with chemicals which are exceedingly sensitive to light.  When the light falls upon this film, there is no visible change, yet the picture is there.  It only needs to be developed.  It is taken into a darkroom and immersed in a liquid containing certain chemicals which dissolve parts of the coating of the film exposed to the light.  The negative is placed in this solution and the dish tilted from side to side, washing and rewashing the face of the plate or film until gradually the image is revealed.  This is called  "developing the plate."  The picture was there all the time but it needed to be developed.

     Trials and testings are God's  "developers"  of Christian character.  There are gifts and graces and virtues which are never developed except in the darkroom of God's school of affliction.  Some of you today are in God's darkroom, while He passes you through test after test of developing solution, while bringing out a beauty in you, which will be its own explanation and God's answer to the question,  "Why must I suffer so?" He wants to bring out in you the image of Him whose likeness you bear.

"Little furnaces are for little faith.  The greatest compliment God can pay us is to heat the furnace to the utmost."

"Bread For Each Day"

Testing In Deep Waters

Come, sit, and enjoy a cup of tea or coffee in the comfort of the Lord:  "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice."  Ephesians  4:31

                    "Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul."  Psalm  69:1

     A flood of "overflowing waters" was a familiar Hebrew figure for the calamities of life which often threaten to drown the soul in misery and despair.  David in Psalm 69 expresses the frantic cry of one who is so beset by trial that he immediately recognizes that only God can possibly help and deliver him.  Many of us can echo David's petition of distress, for we too have experienced "sorrows like sea billows" that have ominously threatened to engulf our soul.  Yet when He who is love dwells within, we may be confident that the waters of distress will never completely overflow us.  Indeed, we are assured in His Word that "Many waters cannot quench (His) love, neither can the floods drown it"  (Song of Solomon  8:7).

     A jeweler gives as one of his surest tests for diamonds, the so-called "trial by water" experiment.  He says,  "An imitation diamond is never so brilliant as a genuine stone.  If your eye is not experienced enough to detect the difference, a simple test is to place the jewel in question under water.  The light of an imitation stone when submerged will be practically extinguished, while a genuine diamond will sparkle and remain distinctly visible.  The contrast is so marked that none can mistake the counterfeit."  So, too, many seem joyful and confident as long as they have no trials in this life; but as soon as the waters of sorrow begin to flow about them, their faith loses its brilliancy.  Those, however, who have been fortified in advance by laying up in their heart the precious promises of the Word, and who have appropriated more fully the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit, will shine forth in the "deep water test" as genuine jewels of the King!

"Bread For Each Day"