After enduring years of abuse, I found myself with a heart of stone, filled with hate for those who had abused me. As I was sitting in church one day the Lord told me those people were not my enemy. The pastor who had been counseling me, kept telling me they felt I was going to come out of all the abuse, and this whole mess smelling like a rose. Wonderful! Only they forgot to remind me that in order for roses to grow and become more beautiful, they sometimes need manure.
The Bible tells us in James 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
That is what the Bible says. However, many times that is not how we feel when going through “temptations”.
According to Strong’s Concordance and The KJV New Testament Greek Lexicon, the meaning of temptation is; a trial, proving, the trial of man’s fidelity, integrity, virtue, constancy. Also an enticement to sin, whether arising from the desires or from the outward circumstances.
Temptation, trial or whatever you want to call it, can be from a sin that we have committed, or something in us that God needs to remove in order for us to grow up and be mature enough to handle the plan He has for us. Not to mention that He is looking for a bride without spot, wrinkle or blemish (Ephesians 5:27). Even for us to receive His blessings, if we aren’t mature enough, it can cause us to fall or turn away from following Him.
God has a plan for each one of us, but we need to go through the furnace sometimes in order to be able to do what He has for us. When going through trials it is hard to see the reason why. It is hard to understand why God allows us to go through some of those things. One day God told me that the people that abused me was the fertilizer that was making me grow and mature in Christ. He was not saying that they were “manure”, as He loves all of us, even those we don’t love. But the abuse made me seek God.
Another thing I had to learn, was that I could not act like those who were hurting me. That made me no different then they were.
The Bible says in Matthew 7:17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.. God was telling me that if I acted like them I would be producing bad fruit like them. If I would do what His Word says to do, I could mature and overcome. I could come out smelling like a rose.
In the midst of my fiery furnace God wanted me to choose His ways. One of the subtitles in the book of Jude is titled “The sin and doom of Godless men” 12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds [they are] without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; 13. Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.
It doesn’t matter what you have gone through, each one of us have a choice to make. If we try to live by “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” we will produce bad fruit and be no different than those that have hurt us. But even worse we could end up spending eternity in Hell. The passion in my heart is to show those who have been abused and have gone through Hell on earth, that by choosing God and His ways, we won’t have to spend eternity in hell. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve already gone through too much hell here on earth without having to spend eternity there. And I don’t want God to use the words in Jude, verse 12 to describe me.
1Peter 1:6-8 it says; 6 Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations:7. That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: 8. Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:
Christians Need Trials Like Roses Need Manure
