No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
As a pastor, I’ve noticed a trend amongst Christians: there are football Christians and basketball Christians.
If you’ve ever watched a football game, you’ve seen a 250-pound football player get tackled by another 300-pound football player and then get up and walk back to the huddle and ask for the ball again. If you’ve ever watched a basketball game, you’ve seen a basketball player fall to the ground at a single touch and cry for a free shot.
In the same way, we have Christians who get hit, experience trials, and continue going. But there are also Christians who get hit and cry, blaming God for being evil.
When we experience trials, we are given the opportunity to get up and continue going or to sit and complain.
Have you ever noticed that when you cut open an apple, you find apple inside? You will never cut open an apple and find an orange inside.
But if you cut open a “Christian,” a lot of the time, you won’t find a Christian inside. We can wear the exterior of a Christian–go to church, say “Praise the Lord” -but if we abandon all of it at the first encounter with pain, it all becomes meaningless.
We say we’re Christian; we say we’re going to do this or that. But sadly, when it comes down to it, that’s not how we are on the inside; that’s not how we act.
One of the very vital things about leading a congregation is speaking to pain: pain that we will all eventually come across.
It is important to acknowledge that there are two responses to pain:
The first response is to define ourselves as weak, failures, or not good enough, which prevents us from seeing God’s solution. It is very hard to convince ourselves of God’s solution when we already labeled ourselves as losers in the situation.
The second possible response is to consider ourselves victorious by remembering and living within the truth that we belong to God. We can recognize that He loves us and has not forgotten all about us. We can consider pain a part of a lesson that is teaching us how to rely more on God.
We must always go with the second. We must be people who abide in the truth of God’s love for us even through the darkest time because that is the only way to get through.
We must take comfort in the biblical stories of Job who was stripped of everything and Daniel who was thrown into the lions’ den. Both were confident in their God in the bad situations, and God was faithful to them.
God is always faithful; we are the ones who falter in faithfulness.
We must learn to be faithful. When we are cut open, we should find a Christian inside. When we are hit hard, we should get up again and keep going like a football player.
If we remain committed to who we are in God and who God is to us in spite of the pains of life that come our way, we will walk through them and do something significant in the world.
