The book, Don’t
Waste Your Sorrows by Paul Billheimer, gives new insight into God’s eternal
purpose for each Christian in the midst of life’s greatest adversities.
“Because
tribulation is necessary for the decentralization of self and the development
of deep dimensions of agape love, this love can be developed only in the school
of suffering…” Romans
8:18, 5:3-5; John 16:33; 1 Thessalonians 3:3-4
Our Times Are in
God’s Hands – Not Satan’s
Psalm 31:15
“There is nothing
accidental in the life of an obedient child of God. All born-again believers
are in training for rulership. God Himself is personally supervising the
training of His Son’s Eternal Companion who is to be His governing elite
following the Marriage Supper of the Lamb… God Himself specifically chooses
the tools and instruments which He knows are needed to fashion and qualify His
Bride for the unique sphere of her operation and service in the eternal
kingdom. Someone has said that the turning lathe that has the sharpest knives
produces the finest work. When God makes a saint, He uses the sharpest knives
on His turning lathe as well. He cannot shape one without pain, but He never
uses needless pain...
“When He laid down His life
on Calvary , it was not for angels or
archangels, cherubim or seraphim, nor for any of the other inhabitants of the
unseen world, but for human beings made in His own image, who will constitute
His Bride…
“Marriage
and the home is the center of all life on earth… It is a complete laboratory
with all of the stresses and strains, trials and pressures packed under one
roof… Everything needed to produce Christlikeness in us can be found in the
home… Marriage is the most stressful fact of life. If the whole of life is
stress, then marriage is the center of stress… most newlyweds have not yet
learned the true meaning of unselfishness. They may be saved, sanctified or
filled with the Holy Spirit, and still be unconsciously self-centered. One of
God’s main purposes in ordaining marriage and the home is not primarily for
pleasure, as is ordinarily supposed, but to decentralize the self, to teach
agape love. The stresses of marriage and the home are designed to produce
brokenness, to wean one from self-centeredness, and to produce the graces of
sacrificial love and gentleness.
“Because so
few people understand the nature and purpose of marriage, when unexpected
stresses and strains develop they are tempted to feel that they have made a
mistake and perhaps have married the wrong person. The next step is to seek a
way of escape by one means or another, sometimes through a professional
marriage counselor or, more often, the divorce court…
“If all
born-again believers are in apprenticeship for rulership, and if a lofty
dimension of agape love is the supreme qualification for high rank and
authority in that eternal social order toward which the universe is moving, and
if a high dimension of agape love cannot be achieved without suffering, could
this explain why God permits many who seek healing to suffer on, even for a
lifetime?
“If God
healed everyone immediately where would be the opportunity for character
training? If God delivered everyone from conflict, oppression, and opposition
at the first call, where would be the opportunity for the perseverance that
creates character? If tribulation were lifted at the first cry, where would be
the chance for exercise in patience which issues in heavenly character, the
chief ingredient of which is agape love?” (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5)
“If we suffer, we shall also reign with him” 2 Timothy 2:12 and “If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified
together” Romans 8:17
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