We have just finished a string of funerals and are looking ahead to others soon unless the Father intervenes supernaturally. One was a freak automobile accident in which a woman was killed right in front of our church. One was a baby who lived only a few days after birth. Another died from cancer which had already reached stage four when diagnosed. Another was a very loved man in our church who had been dealing with health issues, who simply laid down for a nap and never woke up. These were all within two weeks of each other. We also have another dear friend who has just been diagnosed with stage four cancer and doctors are giving her about a year to live. This is life in a fallen world.

I have had my own share of pain in this life just as you have. We pray for protection. We pray for healing. Some are protected and others are not. Some are healed and others are not. We could go into a whole theological treatise on the subject of why some are and some aren’t, but that is never fully satisfying. I think the real question for us is how do we deal with pain and loss and even our disappointment with God when we are impacted by tragedy…including child abuse, birth defects, rape, divorce, and injustice.

Most of us, myself included, want to live in a bubble of protection as children of God in which we never lose, we never grieve, we never hurt. But Jesus said to those who follow him, “In this world you will have trouble.” Even on the pages of the New Testament, people were persecuted, arrested, martyred, beaten, shipwrecked, hungry and so forth. Jesus, the very Son of God, found himself as a political refugee in Egypt as a child and as an adult often found himself hiding from Jewish authorities who were trying to kill him. We are certainly promised peace and protection in scripture but it usually doesn’t look like we want it to. We want the absence of struggle and conflict. But most promises are fulfilled in the midst of struggle and conflict.

Think of David. He was anointed to be king of Israel years before he took the throne. In the meantime, he was falsely accused, hunted, betrayed, embattled, hungry at times, and always at risk of being discovered by King Saul. It was in the midst of these trials David declared the faithfulness of God, and in the midst of these trials when the Father prepared a table before him in the midst of his enemies (Ps. 23).. The promise is that God will see us through the trouble rather than preventing all trouble…though I am sure he does much of that as well for all of us. We will all have to navigate troubles in this life. I think there are three things we must do to navigate them well.

(1) Determine that God is good. Confirm that no matter what I experience, he loves me. Jesus died for me. He has given me his Spirit and written my name in heaven. He has been merciful to me and blessed me in so more ways than I can number. I need to settle that in my heart so that when tragedy comes, I do not accuse God of abandoning me. This is always the enemy’s ploy. He always accuses God of being uncaring, unreliable, and even cruel. He wants us to come into agreement with him. We cannot. We stand on the goodness of God.

(2) When loss or tragedy come, we may feel that we prayed God’s will with faith, but our prayer still wasn’t answered. We may be confused as our experience seems to contradict some biblical promises we have stood on. We may face a set of circumstances and outcomes we simply don’t understand. Our response will have to be a willingness to live with some level of mystery while we stand on our belief that no matter what, God is good and his purposes are perfect. There are things in the spiritual realm that we may be totally unaware of that Give Satan access to us and our family. There may be purposes of God that we cannot grasp that will be accomplished through hardships. We must believe that all things work together for good….even the hard things.

(3) We must use our own pain to bless others. Paul wrote, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows” (2 Cor. 1:3-5). Simply put, you will find God in the midst of troubles and if you hold onto him, he will bring you out and set you on your feet. You will learn invaluable truths in that process and will gain empathy for those coming along behind you. As Christ’s pain worked to bring good about in our lives, our pain will help others survive what we have survived.

Suffering can be endured if is has meaning. Meaningless suffering can destroy us. When we have faith that God will use our pain to minister to others, it gives our suffering meaning and redeems our pain and our loss. After forty years in ministry, I have learned the truth that our healing is only completed when we have used our tragedy, our loss, or our failure, to minister to others. When we have done that, our pain then counts for something, We may still not understand why it happened, but in our willingness to share God’s comfort with others, Satan is defeated. As they old idiom goes, we have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. When we use what Satan meant for harm to do good, God completes our healing.

We will all suffer pain and loss in this world. God has not lied. The word of God tells us this is true but also that Jesus has overcome the world and we will as well, if we hold onto God in spite of our confusion and the mysteries we face. When we stand on the truths we do know, rather than being side-tracked by experiences we don’t understand and when we use our pain to bless others, healing comes and victory is ours. Ultimately, every promise we long for will be fulfilled when we stand beside Jesus in heaven. In the meantime, hold on to him when the storms come and you will see his goodness once again.

In his book, And David Perceived That He was King, Dale Mast makes a case I have long agreed with. Identity is the key to fulfilling our destiny. He states, “Whenever God visited a man in the scriptures, it was the end of one season and at the beginning of another one. Identity shifts are required for each new season.” The challenge is the time it takes to form a new or modified identity once it has been revealed.

Mast uses the example of David who was anointed king over Israel years before he became king. David had faith to face Goliath and to lead Israel into many battles, but we are told in 2 Samuel 5:12 that finally “David perceived that the Lord had established him king over Israel, and had exalted his kingdom for his people Israel’s sake.” The moment David actually comprehended he had been established as king was years after he was anointed to be king. Faith may have accepted the statement but it was years before David saw himself as God saw him. It was only then that David took on the identity of a king and felt secure in being God’s leader.

Each of us have a destiny that God is trying to reveal to us, but until we take on our identity in that role, we will never have confidence that God is going to do something extraordinary through us. If we harbor doubts about who God has made us, we will shrink back and not “risk” the new things or we will cover up our insecurities and manipulate situations to maintain our position.

If you study the life of King Saul, David’s predecessor, you will see that he never felt secure as king. He never believed that God had firmly established him in that role so he felt threatened at all times…even to the point of trying to murder those he thought wanted his throne. . He pushed ahead instead of waiting on the Lord when he thought his position or his success was in jeopardy. He fought battles for his own glory, built monuments to himself, and ended up a colossal failure.

When David perceived he was king, he comprehended that God had established him as king and no one could remove him until God made the decision to do so. With that heart knowledge, he was able to live out his destiny with confidence.

The question is how do we develop our identity. As children, we are born into the world with little idea of who we are. We develop a self-image based on what we are told about ourselves, how others react to us, and how we perform in given situations. If we are consistently told we are loved, capable, valuable, etc. and the actions of those closest to us agree with those words, we develop an identity of being a person who matters, who can accomplish great things, who anticipates that others will value us, etc. and will perform at higher levels because we believe we can.

If, on the other hand, we are told we don’t matter, that we are worthless and stupid and that no one will ever ove us, we develop a self-image or identity that anticipates failure and rejection and that lives up to those expectations. This dynamic is what sociologist have called the “looking glass self.” In other words, we look to others to find evidence of who we are and usually believe what we see about us in their reactions to us. It takes time for our initial identity to form and even more time to change our self-image if it needs reconstruction. But, the change is essential.

God changed Abram’s name to Abraham as he begin to build an identity in Abraham as a father of God’s chosen nation. That was difficult because for decades he and Sara could have no children. But God kept speaking and Abram kept listening and, finally, he saw who he was through God’s eyes. God had become his “looking glass”or his mirror.

We must take the same journey as God shifts our identity so we can fulfill our destiny. We must learn to hear God and allow him to be the mirror through which we perceive ourselves. We need to say what he says about us. We need to dream what he dreams about us. We need to see ourselves as sons and daughters in the house, greatly loved and valued by the Father. Our identity must come from Him and what he says about us rather than our performance. Peter did not initially live up to the name (Rocky) or identity Jesus gave him. If he had let his performance define him on the night Jesus was arrested, Peter would never had shown up to preach the first gospel sermon on Pentecost. If our identity depends on what we have been doing, we can never move beyond that. We must allow God to speak to our hearts and tell us who we are in his eyes and claim that by faith so that we can step into the next chapter of whatever God has for us.

I like what Mast says in regard to this. He writes, “Faith can peak in a moment, but identity requires a sustained vision. Identity must be held in place by thoughts we receive from Father God. Faith is more fruitful when it operates from our true identity.” I think we should all take moments to assess our identity and the source of that identity. Knowing and believing who we are in Christ is essential to growth, fruitfulness, security, and peace. It is essential to accepting our next assignment from the Father. Who or what is the mirror by which we see ourselves? We should know and make adjustments when needed.

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 1 John 2:15

In this text, John is not speaking of the people in the world for “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,” but the systems of the world that are controlled by Satan. These are the systems of philosophy, power, politics, media, etc. that war against the kingdom of God and draw men away from the Father.

The nature of the Kingdom of God is countercultural to the world. Paul draws the line when he says, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord” (2 Cor. 6:14-17). Paul asserts that there are ultimately only two kingdoms and only two people groups. You are either in the kingdom of God or the kingdom of darkness. The presence of the Holy Spirit within a person or the absence of the Spirit defines who you belong to. There is no middle ground.

On several occasions, Jesus himself observed that the world hated him and the same world would hate those who follow him. Now, more clearly than ever, lines are being drawn between the systems of the world and the Kingdom of God. People are choosing sides…many without even knowing it and the sides are at war. What people fail to realize is that spiritual forces are at work behind everything we see and hear in the natural realm and whoever you align with places you in their camp. Paul said the dividing line is Jesus.

The opposing values of each camp are becoming increasingly clear. What God calls good, the world calls evil. What the world parades as good, God clearly identifies as evil. This is not a new conflict. Isaiah warned, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isa.5:20).

American pop culture now celebrates abortion and condemns those who stand for life. Homosexuality has now hijacked the rainbow and is granted an entire month to parade and celebrate its perversions. Those who speak out against it are branded as haters and bigots. The world promotes premarital sex and cohabitation and views those who value virginity and sexual purity as strange and even deranged. The world tolerates religion as long as it is inclusive and compromising, To declare that Jesus is the only source of salvation is treated as offensive and ignorant. Accomplished scientists who would declare creationism to be true or, at least, a valid alternative to a godless universe are marginalized in their profession. University professors who would profess to be Christian will also be marginalized and discriminated against in most “leading universities” for their narrow-mindedness and bigotry.

The challenge for believers is to not be moved in their commitment to biblical truth and standards. When we hear the constant drum beat of tolerance for every lifestyle and are surrounded by so much sin that we are no longer shocked by it, incremental compromise is a very real temptation. However, To compromise on these and other important biblical truths and values out of a desire to fit in or be accepted by our culture is a form of denying Jesus. Just as Peter denied knowing Christ out of fear, we too can deny him out of our own fear of man, our own fear of rejection, or our desire to advance in the systems of the world. We may claim Jesus as Lord, but if we abandon his standards of righteousness and adopt out culture’s standards, then he is not truly our Lord.

We have quickly come to a time in which we must accept the fact that if we follow Jesus we will be rejected and even cursed by those who hate Jesus. I think we must decide ahead of time who we stand with without exception. We must accept that following Jesus may come with increasing costs.Some level of persecution is inevitable as our culture continues to reject Jesus and those who follow him. But Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Mt. 5:10-13). 

We must decide now that if we stand for Jesus and the word of God, we may well lose promotions, jobs, friends, positions, opportunities, and perhaps, even our freedom. We must count them as lost ahead of time but know that blessing will come to us as a promise of God. We may lose our reputation on earth, but our reputation in heaven is all that counts. We must be clear about where Jesus stands on the issues of the day and stand with him. By definition, the kingdom of God will always be countercultural until the Lord returns. Stand firm then and be blessed in these days of trouble.

One of the supernatural gifts of the Spirit is discernment. It is translated as “distinguishing between spirits” in the NIV. “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues” (1 Cor. 12:7-10).

The word means to distinguish, test, judge, or discern. The gift allows a person to sense whether a spirit is from the Lord or from the enemy. It allows a person to sense whether something is good or evil or even if some evil is operating in a predominately good person. It allows us to determine whether a word of knowledge, a prophecy, or a teaching is from the Holy Spirit, an unclean spirit, or the human spirit. Although some have a highly developed spiritual gift of discernment, we are all called to be discerning and to test things from the spiritual realm.

Paul wrote, “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil” (I Thess.5:19-22). In this context, he was instructing the church not to consider all prophecies as false but neither to consider them all from the Lord. Any time we feel as though we have heard from the Lord or had an experience from the Lord, we need to test what we have heard or experienced to discern whether it was, in fact, from God, the enemy, or our own well of thoughts and desires.

We are not to become cynical or jaded and suspect every word of knowledge, every interpretation of tongues, every prophecy, or every spiritual experience, as being from the enemy or from the imagination of man. However, we are to be wise and “test the spirits” as John instructs us, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (I Jn. 4:1). Wherever there is a genuine experience from God, the enemy will try to counterfeit that experience in some way that actually leads us away from God.

As we are certainly in the end times (how far in I don’t know), we are experiencing heightened spiritual activity on both sides of the conflict. Certainly, the church is moving in the gifts of the Spirit, perhaps, in the greatest numbers ever known. Prophetic words are abundant. Thousands of teachings about the Word and all kinds of spiritual matters are on the internet. Paranormal experiences are becoming mainstream, instead of fringe, in our culture. Demonic affliction and demonic presence in households seems to be growing. Numerous “freedom ministries” are being birthed around the world to teach the church how to engage in spiritual warfare. Within all of this, some is from God, some from the enemy, and some from our own imagination or desires.

Because of the time we are in, It is imperative that we pray for and practice discernment. Jesus told us that the Spirit would lead us into all truth. Discernment is simply truth about a spirit or experience. Before we chase a new teaching or a new approach to spiritual matters, we should pray for discernment. If something doesn’t feel right, we should pay attention to that feeling because it may be a prompting from the Spirit.

Paul told Timothy, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron” (1 Tim.4:1-2). Some deception will come through the church from men and women who are being influenced by demons. These individuals will be compelling, eloquent, and mostly biblical. Satan usually leads men astray by only introducing small amounts of error at a time that eventually take us far away from the truth. Speaking of such men, Paul warned, “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:13-15).

I’m not trying to make us paranoid about every spiritual leader. The great majority will be sincere men and women serving God. But I am saying that we need to wait before allowing ourselves to embrace a new teaching, a new pastor, a new prophet that many are raving about. Jesus told us that we would have to judge men and prophets by their fruit. It takes time for fruit to appear and for that fruit to be examined. We will have to pray, see some long-term effects of a teaching or movement, compare their teachings to the Word, see if the teaching or movement is pointing us primarily to Jesus or to a man and new experiences.

Sometimes, we question a teaching, but then decide that the pastor or prophet must know much more Bible than we do so we credit what they are saying as being biblical and accept it. I often did that as a new believer only to discover later that what I had been taught did not really line up with the word of God. Paul called the Bereans noble because they searched the scriptures every day to test the teaching of the apostle. To preach an inaccuracy does not make a person a false teacher because we all continue to learn and receive understanding from the Spirit. If I teach the same things today that I did 30 years ago about every scripture or topic, then I have not been growing in the Lord.

However, when men begin to question essentials – the inspiration of scripture, the divinity or humanity of Christ, the reality of his resurrection, the power of the Holy Spirit, salvation by grace alone, and the clear moral teachings of scripture…I need to pay very close attention. God is unchanging and his standards of righteousness are unchanging, The gospel that the apostles preached is also unchanging, Culture does not get a vote.

We live in a day when discernment and the testing of spirits is more needful than ever. Please pray for the gift of distinguishing between spirits and equip yourself with biblical truth and understanding, Wisely test what you hear and the spiritual experiences people are pursuing. Some experiences take us right to God, while others take us in a different direction. May the Spirit lead us all into all truth and may we always ask for his leading on new and exciting things we encounter. Blessing IN Him.

Note: My website is now www.tomvermillion.org rather than tomvermillion.com.