Let Him Handle It!

God is doing something in your life you can't see while you are going through circumstances you can't understand. We are actually called in our relationship to Christ to go through these pressures with victory.


Scripture: 1 Peter 2:19-21, John 15

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again radio friends. How in the world are you?You doin’ all right? Oh I’m fine, praise the Lord.Thank you for asking. I feel great! And I’m so thankful for the privilege of being with you, just for another few moments to share from God’s blessed, eternal, inerrant, infallible, inspired Word of God, the Bible. Are you facing some kind of a decision today? Go to the Word of God and just read it and, and, and let the Spirit of God speak to you from God’s Word. I can assure you, He will.

Now I would advise against the practice of just opening the Bible at random and looking at whatever verse pops up. Because sometimes the passage may not be applicable at all. But consecutive reading in a book of the Bible, whether it’s Romans, or Mark, or John, or, or 2 Chronicles or what, consecutive reading in any book of the Bible in your devotions, I can assure you that the blessed Holy Spirit of God indwells the believer, will speak to your own heart through the Word of God.

Paul the apostle said, “The Word of God is alive.” He used the word ‘quick’, which means ‘alive’. Alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. How often I myself have been convicted of something as I just read the Bible, and the Spirit of God spoke to my heart.

Start with God. Start with the Bible. Let your decision-making be based upon God’s eternal wisdom. There are no regrets when you follow God’s Word. Well, that was a detour. It wasn’t in the text, it wasn’t in the script; but it was in my heart. So there. (Laughs)

We’re in chapter 2 of 1 Peter. We’ve come to this beautiful, beautiful passage concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. And Peter launches these truths from the springboard of human troubles and suffering. “Hereunto were ye called. If when you do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently. This is acceptable with God.” What is, what is God looking for? He’s looking for people who stand up under pressure, they’re patient, and they do it for the glory of God.

What glory is it? See, verse 20 starts with the idea that, if glorifying God. In verse 19 he talked about being appreciated by people. “This is thankworthy if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering, wrongfully.” If you stand up under the pressures, the wrongful even, the wrongful pressures of life, people are going to appreciate your devotion to God. I’ve had people say to me through the years, “Well I don’t agree with you, Cook, but I, I certainly respect your, your, your faithfulness to God” you know, that sort of a thing.

Even the pagan around you is going to respect your consistent devotion to the Lord God Almighty. Thankworthy. Then he talks about glorifying God — verse 20. “What glory is it,” so he says, “if when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently? This is acceptable with God.” God looks for people who aren’t in the business of getting even, but are in the process of going through the experience triumphantly.

“Thanks be unto God which always,” Paul says, “always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest by us the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.” God wants you under pressure to be like the petals of the flowers that are put under pressure when they make perfume. He wants to spread His perfume around when your life is under pressure. He says, “This then is acceptable with God.”

Now Peter goes a step further, and this comes then to the verse that we were talking about the last time we got together. He said, “For even hereunto were ye called.” This is part of your calling as a Christian to glorify God under the pressures of life. Now people have wrote, written me and called me up, and have said, “Well, Mr. Cook I, I don’t understand why God doesn’t answer my prayer. I’ve been praying to get out of this situation for months or years” — whatever the case may be. “And, and it just doesn’t seem to, to work out.”

Well, there’re couple of answers to that. One is, God isn’t done with you yet, you know. You’re, He’s still working on you. Remember that little chorus that the children sing? ‘God’s still working on me. It took Him a week to make the moon and stars, and the Earth and the sea, and everything else. But He’s still workin’ on me.’ Well, He isn’t done with you yet — that’s, that’s the first thing.

And the second thing is, this is part… The pressures you experience, even the frustrations — you get frustrated because things don’t work out, isn’t it true? You’ve got physical frustrations. And you’ve got, you’ve got desires and needs, and appetites, and hopes, and, and ambitions; things that are, that are connected with your human personality — body, soul, and spirit. And what you’ve been praying for hasn’t worked out.

Well, what’re you going to say? Did God play a dirty trick on you? Has He forgotten you? Somebody asked, “Did God forget me?” Well that, that Scripture, the people in, in Bible times said, “Hath the Lord forgotten to be gracious?” you know. We’re human beings, and sometimes we think about that. No, He hasn’t forgotten you. He said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” He hasn’t forgotten you. Then some people say, “Well, is God punishing me?” No. “When you trust the Lord Jesus Christ there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, which walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.”

God isn’t punishing you. Jesus bore your punishment on the cross, beloved. He hasn’t forgotten you, He’s not playing a dirty trick on you, He isn’t punishing you. “Well,” you say, “then what? I want so much to have a change in my life. I want things to be different and nothing happens.” Does that sound familiar to you? Just remember, he says, “Hereunto were you called.” Because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps. God isn’t through with you yet. God is doing something in your life; and this, that you’re going through as a believer.

Now make sure you know the Lord Jesus is your Savior. You don’t know Him as your Lord and Savior, you’re already lost, as though you’d already been in hell for a million years. It isn’t that sometime you’ll be saved, and sometime you’ll be lost. Right now you’re either saved or lost — you know that don’t you, dear friend? Make sure of your position in Christ. But if you know for sure that you’ve trusted the Lord Jesus as your Lord and your Savior, and this minute you’re trusting in the merit of His shed blood on Calvary, and His righteousness given to you by faith… — is that true of you? If it is, then you can know for certain that God is working in your life, and the circumstances under which you are right this minute are part of His divine plan.

“Every branch in me that beareth fruit, He prunes it,” said Jesus our Lord, as recorded in John 15. “that it may bring forth more fruit. Herein is My Father glorified that ye bear much fruit.” You have, you people who study your Bible, you know you have those, those degrees of fruitfulness — no fruit, some fruit, more fruit, much fruit. God wants you to be fruitful, bearing much fruit in your life. And in order to do that, sometimes He has to put us through the wringer, sometimes He has to subject us to, to circumstances that we don’t like, and about which heaven knows, we complain.

He isn’t through with us yet. He’s working in our lives. Philippians 2:13: “It is God that worketh in you, dear friend.” Did you get it? “For it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” So I have to recognize I don’t like the things the things that happen to me sometimes. You know, don’t get the idea that, that you’re supposed always to be saying, “Oh isn’t this wonderful!” It’s like having a toothache and jumping around saying, “Isn’t this great!” No, you don’t do that.

I don’t like some of the things that happen to me, some of the burdens that are, that are part of living. No, not any more than you do. Like the things that happen to you. You’re not required to enjoy everything. You’re required to submit and to be faithful, and to realize that God is doing something in your life. Does that make any sense to you? Oh I hope it does. Because you know, it’s so hard to go through some of these things where there doesn’t seem to be any answer. And I know, because you’ve written to me, some of you. I know what you’re up against.

And you say, “There doesn’t seem to be any way out.” Somebody’s lonesome, and there’s nobody to share your life. Somebody is ill, and it’s an effort even to put one foot ahead of another as you step across the room. And somebody is heartbroken because a human being has been faithless to you, and cruel. And somebody is broke because the job has disappeared and you don’t know what to do next. These are, these are real hard, real life situations. And no amount of religious talk seems to make them any different.

Beloved listen, God isn’t dead. God is still on the throne. God hasn’t forgotten you. God isn’t punishing you. God isn’t playing some kind of a dirty trick on you. He said, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you: thoughts of good, not of evil, to give you a desired end.” “Delight thyself,” said the psalmist, “delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” Oh let your heart open up to the Lord with a hallelujah anyway. Get your eyes on Jesus, not on the circumstances. “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,” says the Bible.

And so, this very moment if you’re hurting, if you’re, if you’re angry at something, if you’re perplexed, if you’re frightened of the future — whatever it may be… We’re human beings and we have all these things, don’t we? I’ve lived a while and I know. Well, whatever it is, beloved. Turn it over to Jesus by faith. You got saved by faith, didn’t you? If you are a Christian, it was, it was a transaction of faith. You prayed and you believed that God would hear your prayer. And Jesus saved you, didn’t He.

Well then, the Bible says, “The just shall live by faith.” You can turn to Christ today, all that’s on your heart. You can just say, “Lord, You, You handle it.” I got news for you. The minute you do, He does. And the heaviness goes out of the burden, and the sting goes out of the hurt, and the presence of the Lord Jesus fills your life with peace and joy — I can guarantee it. Turn to Him today.

Lord Jesus Christ, we worship Thee, and we adore Thee, and we thank Thee for being our living Savior. Today, take life’s burdens and work in our lives. I ask in thy name. Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!



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