Count it All Joy

Guest (Male): Welcome to Johnny Erikson Tada, Sharing Hope.
Joni Eareckson Tada: I love that this is your place, a place where you can find hope in every hardship. Not that I'm an expert. Like you, I struggle when the problems pile on so high I can barely see light through all the darkness, especially in the middle of the night when sleep does not come easy. Maybe you have heard the strain in my voice now over the months. Yeah, that strain is partly age, but it's also a strain that comes from my chronic condition cuz living with paralysis and pain is wearing. But I'm not complaining. Goodness me, no. I'm just grateful I've got a voice. I'm just thankful to be sitting up in a wheelchair and not in bed like so many of my friends with significant disabilities. But I have hope in my hardships. And over the years, I'm like that chorus to the old hymn. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him. How I prove him o'er and o'er. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus. Oh for grace to trust him more. Yep, I can sing it and I mean it. But believe me, God keeps making me prove it o'er and o'er. And he does it through trials and tests that keep coming my way. It's my story, but it could be your story, too. We say it all the times, I love you, God. And we do. I certainly do, but we easily deceive ourselves unless that love for God is proved o'er and o'er through one test after the next. Cuz love will say, oh Lord Jesus, I would do anything for you. I would follow you anywhere. But then obedience will follow it up and say, now here, let me just prove it. We will never know the depth of our love for Christ unless that love is tested. So it might be proved o'er and o'er. Obedience is not so much for God's sake, but for our sake. God wants us to realize the depth of our love for him. It's what happened to God's people in the wilderness facing one test after the next. It's what happened to the disciples as they faced persecution. It even happened to Jesus. He was led to the Judean wilderness, right, to be tested. And it says there he learned obedience through the things that he suffered. If anyone ever doubted the love Jesus had for the Father, he could point to the many times he obeyed o'er and o'er. And if Christ was tested, are we above our Master? I don't think so. True a test of faith is never easy. If it were, it would not be a test. And so to prove our faith, the Bible says that God is the one who brings us into prisons and lays burdens on our backs. In other words, he brings some pretty hard trials our way to to test us. Yet all the while, he never withholds his love from us. His love drives him to test us in order to refine us like silver. When gold is put through a refining process, it involves heat, a big heat in a furnace. And when silver is refined, it involves pressure as one crushes that metal in a crucible. When a test heats up, we want to escape. When a trial becomes pressuring, we want to collapse. But if we remain faithful and obey, our obedience crushes self-centeredness, revealing a heart pure and at peace as well as faith in God that is strong and steady. So sing this with me and let it come from your heart. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him. How I prove him o'er and o'er. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus. Oh for grace to trust him more. So today, friend, welcome that trial as a friend. Count it all joy. It comes to test and to prove your faith in Christ.