"I want you to know, my dear brothers and sisters, that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the Good News" (Philippians 1:12).
If you want to be all Father created you to be, you need to view every problem from God's perspective. Joyful people have a larger view. They recognize the big picture. When you do not look at things from God's perspective, you get frustrated, discouraged, and disappointed.
No matter what you're experiencing in your life - the good, the bad, and the ugly, God is working it out for your good. Paul knew this. He states in Philippians 1:12, "I want you to know my dear brothers and sisters, that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the Good News."
Paul became a Believer on the road to Damascus, he had one great dream. He wanted to preach in Rome, the center of the universe at the time. His dream was to preach the Gospel in the most famous city in the world.
However, God had another plan. Instead of sending Paul to Rome to preach crusades, God made him a royal prisoner of Caesar, who was at that time, Nero. Nero was about as wicked and as wrong as you can get.
As a royal prisoner, Paul was chained to a royal guard 24 hours a day for two years, and the guard changed every four hours in prison. Over two years in jail, he witnessed to 4,380 guards. Who was the real prisoner here? Who had the captive audience? Philippians 4 says within two years, some of Nero's own family had become believers because of Paul's witness in the royal court in Rome.
Paul knew that God had a bigger picture, and he could be happy because he saw what God was doing through his problem.
No comments:
Post a Comment