“Number four: The highest level of thanksgiving is to give thanks for our tribulations. This is the highest level of being a thankful servant. When you thank Him for the troubles, the tribulations you go through, it is extremely difficult for us to thank Him when we are living a miserable life.
Have you ever seen someone coming out of an exam and coming out having failed miserably and is rejoicing for failing the exam? Hallelujah guys! Thank you, Lord Jesus; I failed the exam. Thank you, God. Yes, I failed, and I’m so happy. Have you ever seen anyone doing that? No. When are we happy? Only on good occasions. I passed the exam; I’m jumping. I’m jumping out of joy and happiness. Yes. I made it. I made it. But nobody rejoices; yes, I failed. I failed. Nobody. We need to learn to thank God for our failures.
Why are you looking at me like that? We need to thank God.
As a couple, husband and wife, there is no couple that does not go through some sort of an argument, misunderstanding, a bit of a friction, disagreements. Sometimes, let’s say the wife disagreed with you as a husband. I’m not saying always because when it’s always, there is something wrong. But sometimes the wife disagreed with you. Don’t be upset. Don’t be angry. Don’t retaliate. What if her disagreement was from God, not from her, for you, my dear husband? What if God is trying to teach you a lesson? Maybe you are lacking patience. Maybe you are lacking humility. Maybe you are lacking being a thankful husband. So God wants to teach you and He’s going to put it in the wife’s heart to stand against you and disagree totally with you and argue the case till the end. She’s not going to give up. She’s stubborn about it. Well, maybe you need to be thankful. So what do you do, my dear husband? You go out, and into your room alone kneel there and pray to God, to Jesus Christ that is the God, the only God, there is no other God but Jesus Christ of Nazareth. So you go to the Lord Jesus and say ‘Lord I am the most blessed person on the face of this planet. I am so grateful. I am indeed to you, Lord, for you have given me a wife that is an absolute pain in the neck. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Now that’s what I call a wife. She gives me hell but I may be needing it.’
It is not always healthy to walk through paradise. You need to see hell. Sometimes it is good to see hell. You see, if I don’t see hell, I’ll never appreciate paradise. In fact, I’ll never understand the value of paradise, if I don’t go through hell. We would never appreciate the light if we did not see darkness. We would never appreciate the health if we did not encounter sickness. We would never appreciate our feet if we were not crippled and paralyzed. We need to see the other side.
The highest level in thanksgiving is when you thank God, when we thank God for our tribulations, for our hardships. We should thank God in the midst of difficult times and troubles and to be content and thankful in times of tribulations. St. Paul rejoices in tribulations. We should be thankful that we are worthy to endure tribulations. We should be thankful that we are worthy to endure tribulations. Do you know what that means? I’ll tell you.
We should be thankful that we are worthy to endure tribulations. You see, when we encounter a difficult time in our life, me and you, we will never, we will never be able to overcome any difficult moment in our life if it wasn’t for God’s grace. If it wasn’t for God, there was no way in the world any human being could come and cut through this harsh moment of life unless God was with me. So, when I was able to endure that tribulation then I was made worthy because God was with me. And for God to be with me, that can only happen when He makes me worthy to be with Him. No one is worthy to be with God. No one is worthy to be in the presence of God. God is Holiness. We are sinners. God is perfect. We are not. God is light and we can be darkness. For God to allow me to be with Him, and He with me, that is worthiness from God for me. Therefore I need to be grateful for allowing me to go through this tribulation because if it wasn’t for God being with me, I would have died in that troublesome moment.
It was God who saved me.
It was God who delivered me.
I can speak on your behalf, my beloved. When we sit for a moment with ourselves and think for a moment and reflect on our past life, how many times did we go through moments and stages in the past that we said, ‘I can’t do it anymore. I can’t make it anymore. I am in trouble. I don’t know who can come to my rescue. I have failed. I don’t know what to do anymore.’ I’m sure we would have said that at least once, if not more. Then, how did you make it? Because you said I can’t. I can’t go anymore. I can’t continue anymore. I’ve had enough. It is too much for me. I can’t bear it. I can’t carry this anymore. The weight is too heavy for me to handle. But we’re still here. Who brought me out of that trouble? Who delivered me out of that difficult and impossible moment in history?
God.
God, my beloveds.
When people come and say, ‘unless you prove it to me that God exists, unless I know, unless I come to this understanding, I will never believe in God. Unless I get to know.’ You will never find God when you use your head. If you think you can find God with your intellectual level; if you think you can find God when you comprehend, when you fathom it, that day will never come my beloved, because the day I am able to contain God in my intellectual level, He is no longer God but I am because I am greater than Him now. When I’m able to contain him here [in the head], I’m greater than Him. Therefore, God is not a thought. God is an experience. You are only able to find if God truly exists or not from the experiences of life. You will see the hand of God working in your life, the difficult experiences in your life. Who pulled you out of them, my dear friend? Definitely was no one else. Neither you nor anyone else. It was the Lord. It was the Lord Jesus working in your life.
Therefore, when you went through the tribulation and came on the other side intact in one piece, thank God, for He has made you worthy to endure tribulation, because if it was not for Him being with you, there was no way in the world, you would have come out in one piece. 100%. So tribulations are good. They reveal to me the mighty hand of God.”
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