Entrusted and Entrusting

O. T. #1135  "Entrusted and Entrusting"
Jan. 17, 2017
Job 12-Part 2
But I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until that day.  2 Timothy 1:12

Thought we could use something different while in the middle of Job's suffering, condemnations by his friends, and his rebuttals. Here is an encouraging, different perspective that I came across reading  an excerpt from Beth Moore's book Entrusted: A Study of 2 Timothy. It is found in the chapter, Because I Know the One:

Will we trust God with the suffering He's entrusted to us? Will we believe He has purpose? Do we have vision enough to believe He's planning one of the biggest harvests of our lives through the seed of the Word we're sowing through this hard season? Desperation can fertilize our soil and tears can water our seed like no ease could ever hope to. Are we willing to believe that right on the other side of this life is a party of epic proportions where we'll ecstatically rejoice and share in His unfathomable inheritance?

Suffering is an inescapable part of inhaling oxygen in the atmosphere of this fallen planet. Paul's paradigm suggests that servants of Jesus suffer some things in direct correlation to the positions God called them to fill. A measure of your pain and hardship really is in connection to your calling. Some of it is spiritual warfare. Some of it is sociological resistance because the world hates us as it hated Christ. some of it is ordained by God for our growth our humility, our compassion, our obedience our completion, our faith, and, our future commendation, joy, and fellowship in His glory. If we have a throw-down fit and refute partake in the sufferings of Christ, we will miss partaking in the explosive joy of that measure of His glory. 

Folks, please read 1 Peter 4:12-16, Paul tells us:

• Don't be surprised when the fiery ordeal, trial comes to test us.
• Rejoice as we share in the sufferings of Christ.
• If we are ridiculed for the name of Christ, then we are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on us.
• If you suffer as a Christian, don't be ashamed, but glorify God in having that name.

Back to Beth:

When we run into great difficulty or pain in the journey of our calling, we're prone to either cast blame or jump to the conclusion that we must have done something wrong or landed somewhere wrong in our attempt to discern God's will. But sometimes hardship will come because you got it right. Sometimes suffering bubbles up from the well of God's immeasurable affection and devotion to us. This He promises us: the suffering will be brief and the fruit of it as long as eternity. (See 2 Cor. 4:17)

Entrusted and entrusting. Will we trust Him with the suffering He's entrusted to us? In 2 Timothy 1:13, Paul told Timothy, Hold on to the pattern of sound teaching. The lexical Greek translated sound means To be healthy, sound, physically well.  Concerning persons, to be sound in faith, means firm, pure in respect to Christian doctrine and life. God used His words to heal my tormented mind and to piece back together my broken heart. He still uses them every day of my life to bring health to my soul.

In 2 Timothy 1:12, the Greek verb for  am persuaded also translates I am fully convinced. Nothing will substitute for knowing the One you believe in. No one can know Him for you. and no one He knows supplants His knowing you. Faith endures the furious tests by knowing the One in whom it rests.

Thank you Beth. We need that reassurance you gave us, at least I do. Let us not allow the pain of our journey of our call break our faith.