James 1:2-4 (NKJV)
2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces [a]patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be [b]perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
All of us will face a time of crisis at various points in our life. A crisis is a time of danger or intense difficulty and a time when decisions may have to be made.
One challenge with today’s average Christian is that we are not taught how to handle a crisis and this is mainly because we do not know who we are and the God that we serve. We complain and give up in the midst of a crisis thinking that God has forgotten us. For some strange reason we have swallowed the lie that as long as we believe in Jesus then we should not experience any crisis. Jesus himself told us that in this world we will be offended and we will face tribulation. That’s a guarantee.
With every crisis is an opportunity to know and experience God on a deeper level. A crisis presents us with an opportunity to exercise our faith and to see God do something amazing.
David is a good example. He goes to the field to take supplies to his brothers and he finds a crisis. What does he do? He sees an opportunity and he takes it on. Remember he is only a boy and the whole army plus the king are hiding because of this crisis but David takes it head on. He was able to do this because he understood who he was and the covenant relationship he had with God.
The early church also had its share of one crisis after another and many during that period gave their lives for the sake of standing for the God they believed in. Paul the apostle’s life is riddled with one crisis after another and yet we see him writing the pages of the New Testament filled with encouragement and he does so mostly from the confines of a prison cell, right in the midst of a crisis.
Every crisis is an opportunity to exercise your faith, an opportunity to experience God on a new level, and opportunity to grow to a new level.
From yesterday’s devotion, we know that when you are built on the right foundation then you will remain standing after the storm hits and it has its course. The storm is the crisis and even as Romans 8:28 tells us, all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to his purpose. All the great men and women in the bible have their names and stories recorded because they knew how to overcome a crisis and even the cease the opportunities hidden thereof.
Yes we are more than conquerors, but first you must conquer something.
