God Did Not Promise Us an Easy Life
10 Things God Never Promised
- Crosswalk.com Contributing Author
- 2018 x Apr
How we love to merits the promises of God in Scripture! They give us hope, comfort, and renewed strength.
Yet sometimes we get the Bible'south principles mixed upwards with its promises and that tin can lead to disappointment and even disillusionment with God.
While Scripture contains specific promises, it's of import to empathise that it likewise contains general principles for life. Sometimes nosotros have a principle, consider it a promise, and then feel that God disappointed us when He didn't grant that "hope." Or, we take a promise out of context or read only a portion of information technology and we wonder why God didn't come up through for us.
To proceed you from experiencing that disappointment, and to aid you look forward to what God did commit Himself to, hither are 10 Things God Never Promised:
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1. A Problem-Free Life
"Go God and you'll get expert," I once heard someone say, with the intention of drawing that person to Jesus. The problem with that line of thinking is that Jesus never promised a trouble-free life. To the contrary, He warned those who wanted to commit to Him that if they did, it wouldn't exist an piece of cake road to travel. In Matthew 16:24, Jesus told His disciples: "If anyone would come afterward me, let him deny himself and accept up his cantankerous and follow me." The cantankerous was Rome'south gruesome form of execution during Jesus' day – the most horrific way to die. And so, whenever at that place is a cross involved as a status or consequence, information technology means suffering lies ahead.
Jesus also told His followers in John xv:twenty: "A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will too persecute you lot." Life involves struggles. A life post-obit Jesus might invite more struggles. But instead of preventing or promising to salve you of those struggles, God promised to walk aslope yous through them when He said in Hebrews thirteen:5 "Never will I exit you, nor will I ever abdicate you."
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2. Personal Success
There are principles throughout the Bible that suggest if we do a certain thing and then some other affair is likely to happen. For example, Psalm 1 tells us nosotros are "blessed" if we don't walk in footstep with the wicked, or stand up in the style of sinners, or sit in the company of mockers. Rather, if we delight in God'south law and meditate on it day and dark then any we do prospers. Even so nosotros all know God-fearing people who love and meditate on Scripture who don't necessarily observe that every investment is a slap-up ane, every programme is fail proof, and every attempt in life is successful.
God's rewards many times are eternal, not temporary while we're hither on earth. If you're looking for a promise from God that if you obey Him y'all'll be successful at everything, you won't find it. Residual, instead, in Psalm 37:5 which assures the states: "Commit your manner to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun."
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3. A Happily Ever Afterwards Here on World
Here's where nosotros tend to mix the fairy tales with Scripture. While Jesus came to give united states of america life more abundantly (John x:10), He didn't necessarily promise it while hither on globe. Our eternal life is in heaven. On earth we live with the consequences of sin, aging, disease, addictions, death, poor choices, betrayal from others, and and then on. And thus, nosotros experience pain, loss, illness, death, disappointment, divorce, corruption, and other heartbreaking situations.
God'due south Word does tell usa, however that "in [God's] presence there is fullness of joy; at [His] right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Psalm xvi:11). And His Discussion tells united states that when we delight ourselves in Him, He gives united states the desires of our hearts (Psalm 37:4). I believe that means He places in our hearts His desires and then He delights in granting them. The happily ever after is coming… just not this side of heaven.
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4. A Hubby or Wife for Life
I know you've heard it said, "Trust God and He'll bring the ane He created only for yous." But what if God didn't create a spouse simply for yous? And perhaps you married the one you clearly believed God brought to you and that person betrayed your union and you plant yourself separated or divorced. People make choices every day that are exterior our command and grieve the heart of God. Some of those choices (by you or someone else) might be the reason y'all are unmarried today. While God is gracious and forgiving in spite of our mistakes, He is also wise and knows what is ultimately best for u.s. spiritually, emotionally, and relationally, which ways He may decide information technology's best for you NOT to have the complication or sometimes heartache of matrimony.
Trust Him with what He might be choosing to withhold from you. He promises, "No practiced affair will he withhold from those who walk uprightly" (Psalm 84:xi). Simply think, His thought of what is good for you may non necessarily be the same as your idea of what is practiced for you.
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5. A "Fulfilling" Ministry building
My husband and I accept been in ministry building for 30 years. And I tin honestly tell yous from personal experience likewise as the feel of countless other pastors, musicians, lay ministers, missionaries, and so on that yous can follow God's will, but it doesn't always mean it will be personally fulfilling. What we discover fulfilling and what God determines is His best for the states can be ii dissimilar things.
Look at the Old Testament stories of obedient prophets similar Isaiah (who asked "How long, Lord?") and Jeremiah (who is known as the "weeping prophet" – who of us wants our life purpose and ministry building to involve much weeping?). If your ministry is truly for God and not you, surrender to what He decides that ministry will look like. And residuum in His promise to practice "exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or retrieve, according to the power that works in united states" (Ephesians 3:xx).
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vi. The Answers to Your Questions
God is not obligated to answer our questions or give us reasons that we find acceptable. And He may choose to leave us entirely without answers to certain questions of ours. Why? He is a faith-edifice God. And Hebrews xi:one tells u.s. very clearly that "organized religion is the balls of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Afterwards in Hebrews we are told it is impossible to please God without organized religion. Faith is not having to have the answers, just resting in the assurance that Jesus IS the Answer, even when we tin't see or understand what He's doing.
Please don't dismiss this ane by proverb that the first affair you'll practise when you lot get to heaven is inquire Him your called-for questions. My friend, I believe when y'all and I become to heaven we volition be so grateful that nosotros are in the eternal presence of God by His grace alone that all our questions most why He allowed what He did on earth won't affair anymore. Yous and I would be all-time to notwithstanding those questions with Paul'due south conclusion in Romans 8:eighteen: "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to u.s.."
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7. Wealth and Prosperity
I might step on some toes here, just then and so did Jesus when He addressed the topic of riches, wealth, and success. Jesus never promised health and wealth to those who followed Him. If Jesus said it is harder for a camel to go through the center of a needle than for a rich human being to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:24), why on globe would He requite u.s.a. what would make us much less likely to give up to Him?
Don't hold your breath on those lotto numbers or that opportunity turning into a million-dollar venture. Jesus wants to be our wealth, our prosperity, our portion. David sang in Psalm xvi:viii "Lord, y'all alone are my portion and my cup; you lot make my lot secure. The purlieus lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance." That's Biblespeak for "I'm rich in Christ. He is all I will always need." When Christ is our inheritance and portion, our salary, success, and notoriety won't be almost equally of import to us.
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8. Children Who Follow the Lead
I've heard many parents grab onto Proverbs 22:6 ("Train up a kid in the style he should become, Even when he is old he will not depart from information technology" NASB) and claim it as their hope or guarantee that if they raise their kids in Lord's day School or teach them biblical principles when they're young, their children volition never turn their backs on their faith. But this verse in Proverbs is not a hope, but a principle or guideline, like many of the wise sayings of Solomon, that "if you do this, chances are this other thing will happen."
I know of many parents who start their children in the ways and Discussion of God who never see their children render. That is where we trust God'southward work in their lives, and that God sees what nosotros cannot see.
The wording in that verse "fifty-fifty when he is old he will not depart from it" could mean that when your child is old he will return to his childhood faith. It could mean that you won't run across it in your lifetime. Information technology could mean a deathbed conversion for your son or daughter, or a repentance and coming back to the religion of their childhood when their lives are nearly over. That certainly is not what any of us desires. But at that place is peace when we trust the wisdom, goodness, and timing of God to guide our children with what we have given them. Trust God'south sovereignty. Don't finish praying for that child. And rest in 1 John v:14-xv which promises that "if we ask annihilation according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us – whatever nosotros ask – we know that nosotros accept what we asked of him."
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9. All Things Piece of work Out for the Best
This is probably the near misquoted hope in the Bible. Romans 8:28 ("And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been chosen co-ordinate to his purpose") is not a blanket promise to all individuals that God will turn all their mistakes and unfortunate circumstances into "skillful." Information technology is a promise to those who accept been called according to His purpose. And the proficient God promises those in relationship with Him is not what we necessarily consider good, but what God has determined is eternally good, which the writer of Romans clarifies for us in the very next poetry (Romans 8:29): "those God foreknew he as well predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son."
In other words, equally you are loving God and seeking His purposes for your life, He will allow all circumstances – good and bad – to make you more like Jesus. That is the good that God works out of all our circumstances as nosotros surrender them to Him and seek to exist more like Christ.
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x. To Requite Us Only What We Tin Handle
I, too, have heard many believers say "God won't give you more you lot tin handle" equally an assurance that things won't get worse. But that promise or assurance is not in the Bible. We are told God volition not "tempt us beyond what we are able, but with the temptation will provide an escape and then that we may be able to endure it" (1 Cor. 10:13). But when it comes to struggles, at that place is no such assurance in the Bible that God will only give united states what we're strong plenty for. To the contrary, God will oftentimes give the states more than nosotros tin handle so that we volition depend on Him to behave it for united states of america (Matthew 11:28-30). That is how we come to understand the beauty of His strength in us. That is how we larn dependence on a God who can exercise through u.s.a. what nosotros cannot exercise alone. And that is how we larn to hide ourselves in Him (Psalm 32:7) and rest in His ability to shelter and protect united states of america (Psalm 91:i-two).
Similar its sis pseudo verse (that God helps those who assistance themselves), God helps those who admit they tin can't help themselves. Whatsoever time God allows something hard to come up your style, instead of telling yourself yous're strong enough to handle it or you don't have to worry that God will give you something more than you lot tin behave, await to His loving, capable artillery to help you carry information technology. You will come up to know Him in a closer mode.
Cindi McMenamin is a pastor's wife, female parent, and national speaker with more than thirty years experience helping women come to know God more intimately. She is the author of 16 books, including the acknowledged When Women Walk Lone (more than 125,000 copies sold), When God Sees Your Tears, and When a Woman Overcomes Life's Hurts. Her newest books include, Drama Gratuitous: Finding Peace When Emotions Overwhelm You, and 12 Ways to Experience More than with Your Married man: More Trust, More Passion, More Communication. For more on her speaking ministry, books, or costless articles to strengthen your soul, marriage, or parenting, run across her website www.StrengthForTheSoul.com.
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Source: https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/10-things-god-never-promised.html
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