2 Corinthians 6:2b I
tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.
I have always admired the Apostle
Paul, not just because of his wonderful epistles, but because of the hardships
and struggles he underwent and endured. Whenever I hear a fellow pastor or
someone else disparaging Paul because of something he wrote that they don’t
agree with, I tend to ask whether or not that person has ever experienced
anything similar to Paul. It’s easy to
be armchair theologians and cozy cloistered critics; it’s an entirely different
thing to be constantly harangued, unfairly attacked, and frequently abused for what
Paul ardently believed.
Take today’s partial verse, for
instance:
‘I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor,
now is the day of salvation.’
On the surface, this appears to be a
wonderful scriptural promise, connected to God’s love, favor, and blessing. It
reads like an amazing gift of God’s goodness and a surplus of God’s generous
grace, but Paul follows up on this verse with a staggering list of hardships,
drawbacks, and attacks that he personally experienced and endured. Paul was conveying
to his letter readers this one hard-to-accept fact: having faith in Christ is a
beautiful gift, but it can also cause us a lot of pain, difficulty, and
suffering. Truthfully, for faith to be really effective, it needs to be tried
and tested in serious situations and unhappy circumstances. Fair-weather faith
has no lasting value; however, faith under fire has the ability to grow,
deepen, and mature.
For the Apostle Paul, God’s favor was
found in a fearless faith, and the day of salvation could even be experienced
in times of turmoil and trouble. Perhaps the questions we should be asking
ourselves are these: Is my
faith actually real? Has it been put through a crucible?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You for allowing
us to believe in You. Deepen our faith, so that we may remain loyal to You,
especially in times of hardship, suffering, and trial. In Your Holy Name, we
humbly pray. Amen.
John
Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian
Church
in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to ask questions or make comments
about today’s message, please send him an email to traqair@aol.com.
Today’s
image is one of John’s bulletin covers, based on Psalm 30. If you would like to
view a larger version, please click this link: Psalm 30.
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