GOING THROUGH AFFLICTION SPIRIT LED

“Without [God] all within me is terror and dismay, in him every accusation is charmed into joy and peace” The Valley of Vision (ref#76, p158).

“Suffering brings discouragements, because of our impatience. But if God brings us into the trial he will be with us in the trial, and at length brings us out, more refined. We shall lose nothing but dross (Zech 13:9). From our own strength we cannot bear the least trouble, but by the Spirit’s assistance we can bear the greatest. The Spirit will add his shoulders to help us to bear our infirmities. The Lord will give his hand to heave us up (Ps 37:24)” Richard Sibbes (ref#311, p54-55).

“If we do a thing in order to overcome depression, we deepen the depression; but if the Spirit of God makes us feel intuitively that we must do the thing, and we do it, the depression is gone” Oswald Chambers (ref#7, Feb 17^th).

“You carry a hell around with you. Although you are regenerate, there is much of the old man in the new man. [O]ne reason why God has left original sin in us, so that it can be a thorn in our side to humble us. Under our silver wings of grace are black feet. Let the sense of this make us daily look up to heaven for help. Beg Christ’s blood to wash away the guilt of sin, and His Spirit to mortify the power of it. Beg further degrees of grace. [T]hough grace cannot make sin not to be, yet it makes it not to reign; though grace cannot expel sin it can repel it” Thomas Watson (ref#225, Aug 1^st).

“”[T]he Spirit sanctifies the soul through the medium of God’s afflictive dispensations. They deepen the work of grace in the heart, awaken the soul from its spiritual drowsiness, empty it, humble it, and lay it low, and thus lead to prayer, to self-examination, and to the atoning blood once more. In this way, and by these means, the believer advances in holiness ‘through sanctification of the Spirit.’ [W]e are being made perfect through suffering. The heart has been emptied of its self-confidence. The affections that were seduced from God have returned to their rest; the ties that bound us to the vanities of a world, perishing in its very use, have become loosened; the engagements that absorbed our sympathies and secularized our minds have lost their fascination and their power; the beguiling and treacherous enjoyments that wove their spell around us have grown tasteless and insipid. And thus by all these blessed and hallowed results of our trial, the image of the earthly has become more entirely effaced and the image of the heavenly more deeply engraved and more distinctly legible” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Dec 8^th).

“All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too” (2 Cor 1:3-5 MSG).