Value of Trial
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Jesus loves you, and I am made glad as I read of the experience
through which you are passing, not because you are a sufferer, but
because this is an evidence to me that the Lord Jesus is testing and
proving you, to see if you will come to Him, to see if you will put your
trust in Him and find peace and rest in His love. I am praying for you,
that you may come to Him, the Fountain of living water. This is the
experience that every one of us must have if we ever dwell with Christ
in the mansions that He has gone to prepare for us. You have lessons
of the highest value to learn in the school of Christ, lessons that will
lead you to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
It is when you are prospered, when all men speak well of you, that
you are in danger. Be on your guard, for you will be tried. My greatest
fear for you has been that you would have too great prosperity, and that
you would fail to learn that your dependence is alone upon God. You
have been placed in a position of great trust and honor, and there has
been danger of your becoming dizzy and forgetting your dependence
upon God. You have been placed where you can exert a far-reaching
influence for good if you keep your eye single to the glory of God.
Your heavenly Father loves you, and He will draw you to Himself by
the trials that seem to you severe.
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I have a most earnest desire that you shall enter the city of God,
not as a culprit barely pardoned, but as a conqueror. My brother, will
you think of this? If you are true and humble and faithful in this life,
you will be given an abundant entrance. Then the tree of life will be
yours, for you will be a victor over sin; the city whose builder and
maker is God will be your city. Let your imagination take hold upon
things unseen. Let your thoughts be carried away to the evidences of
the great love of God for you. In contemplating the object of which
you are in pursuit, you will lose the sense of pain brought by the light
afflictions that are but for a moment.
Paul’s Experience
Copenhagen,
July 17, 1886
Paul was a man who knew what it means to be a partaker of Christ’s
sufferings. You have no need that I repeat the history of his trials. His
life was one of constant activity, notwithstanding he was subject to