Lesson 26 Step 7
GTYS Step 7: I choose to share my story of grace and truth with authenticity and vulnerability so that others will be strengthened.
“You must be sifted like wheat, and once you have recovered, you in your turn must strengthen your brothers. ”
"Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires." Matt. 5:10
How will persecution make my happy?
This seems completely upside down. We really don’t associate pain with happiness.
Persecuted in the Greek, “dioko” means a few different things. It does indeed describe when a person is mistreated or persecuted in the general sense, but it also means to run after something, to run swiftly, to press on, to seek, to follow, to reach a goal.
Life in a sense has persecuted you, people hurt you, mistreated you. Holes were created in your heart. Even the past 6 steps have caused you pain and persecuted you. However, you chose to believe God and do the hard work, you pressed on towards the pain to the redemption of the character of God in you. You have chosen pain and have come through the other side strengthened, with a since of joy, even happiness having gleaned the grace and truth and love that was available to you.
Beauty for ashes…
It is entirely likely that you will have your greatest ministry from your weakness not your strength. Your story becomes part of God’s great story of redemption. He does not want you to suffer in vain. He can take the hardest parts of your life, the parts that could have destroyed you, and use them to pull you close and strengthen you and others in your life.
What we have heard and known for ourselves must not be withheld from our descendants but be handed on by us to the next generation. Psalm 78:3-4
We do not need to suffer in vain.
What a wonderful God we have—he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the source of every mercy, and the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us in our hardships and trials. And why does he do this? So that when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them this same help and comfort God has given us. 2 Cor. 1:4 (TLB)
God asks us to share what we have learned with others to encourage them to pursue the life God intended for them. A life of love and peace.
"But life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus … the work of telling others the Good News about God's mighty kindness and love." Acts 20:24 (TLB)
What was given to you freely, you must give away freely. Matthew 10:8