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I do not mean to discourage anyone, but if you think that the Christian life is anything like a picnic or a party, you have not figured it out yet.
We come into God’s Kingdom struggling; prayer is a struggle, self-control, and discipline is a struggle, disciple-making is a struggle, interceding for people around the world is a struggle, holy living is a life-long life and death struggle with our flesh that lives within us that is seeking to come out from the grave where it is buried.
AGONIDZOMAI, the word we have been seeing in these verses, is translated into English AV – strive 3, fight 3, labor fervently 1; 7
It means 1) to enter a contest: contend in the gymnastic games
2) to contend with adversaries, fight
3) metaph. to contend, struggle with difficulties and dangers
4) to endeavor with strenuous zeal, strive: to obtain something
This is the word the Lord through the Spirit of God picked to go into your Bible and mine to describe what life is like in Christ. And that is what we are called to as Christians!
Turn with me to Genesis 12 to look at a fellow struggler. Abraham struggled as he learned to wait. He waited 25 years to see the promises of God fulfilled. Abraham is a fellow pilgrim struggling on the road of faith. He grew in faith waiting for what had been promised.
We have been studying the lives of fellow strugglers in this series. Each of them has been so powerful as God exposes their lives in the Scriptures.
I. Job struggled to See God, and through his pain, he saw Him as never before. If you have ever struggled and triumphed through the pain you learn to see God in a different way. All of a sudden, a lot of things do not matter much when you have a tumor, a heart attack, a negative cancer test, or the first sign of a debilitating illness. Suddenly, life changes; it is not a party anymore. Life is measured one breath at a time. Job came to the point where he despaired of life, he struggled and he saw God like he never saw Him before.
II. Paul and Silas struggled to sing through persecution and learned to worship God from prison. Remember that night in Acts 16?
III. David struggled through depression and learned more about God in his darkest days than ever before. Do you struggle with discouragement and depression? When those dark days come on you, you can make discoveries about God that you cannot make at any other time. In the book of Psalms, at least 70 of them are accounts of David struggling through the difficulties of life.
IV. Joseph struggled to keep his life pure and was purified by God and greatly used because of his purity. Are you struggling in the realm of purity and persecution?
V. Moses struggled to be content. He gave up the treasures of Egypt and was satisfied by the very face of God. Moses got to know God face to face like no one else because he learned to be content with God. He did not want anything else and God gave him Himself.
VI. ABRAHAM struggled to wait for God and when he did became the father of the faith.
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