I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. Psalm 121:1-8 ESV
Two years ago, John Piper was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The evening before his surgery, he wrote a brief article to his church family entitled, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer.” It was very insightful. Here is what John Piper wrote,
“I believe in God’s power to heal—by miracle and by medicine. I believe it is right and good to pray for both kinds of healing. Cancer is not wasted when it is healed by God. He gets the glory and that is why cancer exists. So not to pray for healing may waste your cancer. But healing is not God’s plan for everyone. And there are many other ways to waste your cancer. I am praying for myself and for you that we will not waste this pain.”
And then, John Piper gave ten ways in which you can waste your cancer. He elaborated on each of these ways with a paragraph. For the sake of space, I’ll only give you his points. Here are John Piper’s ways to waste your cancer....
1. You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.
2. You will waste your cancer if you believe it is a curse and not a gift.
3. You will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God.
4. You will waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death.
5. You will waste your cancer if you think that “beating” cancer means staying alive rather than cherishing Christ.
6. You will waste your cancer if you spend too much time reading about cancer and not enough time reading about God.
7. You will waste your cancer if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships with manifest affection.
8. You will waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope.
9. You will waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as before.
10. You will waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.
This is my heart for you as I write this blog this morning. This year has not been an easy year for most of us as we reach its half mark. As we all face our unique struggles and difficulties and temptations, and an uncertain future; I don’t want to waste my trials nor do I want for you to waste them. Rather, I want for us to see and experience that as Psalm 121:1 says, “our help comes from the Lord” and not merely from your own means. I want for you to resolve to put your trust in the LORD through your trials, so that you don’t waste the difficulties that the LORD brings upon your life this year but instead to put your trust in only in Him.
We could easily take the Spirit of John Piper’s words regarding cancer and adapt them generally into “trials” :
1. You will waste your trials if you do not believe it is purposefully, intelligently, intentionally, and sovereignly designed for you by God.
2. You will waste your trials if you believe it is a curse and not a gift.
3. You will waste your trials if you seek comfort from the experiences of others, rather than from the help that God gives.
4. You will waste your trials if you refuse to think about death.
5. You will waste your trials if you think that seeing your trial end, finding relief, or escaping it, is more important than cherishing Christ.
6. You will waste your trials if you spend too much time thinking about your trial and not thinking about God.
7. You will waste your trials if you let it drive you into solitude and isolation instead of deepening your relationships with others in service, care, manifest love, and affection.
8. You will waste your trials if you grieve as one who has no help and is all alone.
9. You will waste your trials if you treat sin as casually as before.
10. You will waste your trials if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and supremacy and the glory of Christ.
This is my desire for my life and how I handle adversity. I am ruthlessly and radically preaching to myself, Robison, DON’T WASTE YOUR TRIALS! This my heart for all of you: Don’t waste your trials and difficulties and struggles and hardships that come upon your life. Rather, use them to display your trust in the LORD for His glory and your heaven graced joy!
Pastor Bill
1 comment:
Has this John Piper ever had cancer? Just wondering. He sounds like Job's comforters here, that did fine, until they opened their mouth's to venture their opinions about Job's situation. I found Piper's dissertation to be very clinical and unloving. Not useful to me, so he won't be visiting me when I get cancer. Comforting others is not be clinical talk, but by our surrendering into the Spirit lead to love and comfort the person!! And in that comfort, they, in God's leading will bring forth the fruit that they are able to bear in Him. Some might bear much, some might bear little. Not our call to lay a "clinical trip" on people like Piper is doing. Again, it seems Calvinists are clinical in their rendition of God's love and so they are, because they have misinterpreted the Way God love people. Might I suggest that you and Piper learn to surrender into God's view of Scripture? Might you and Piper be well schooled, and seminary taught and taught by man, but maybe not taught be God? There is no great theologian really but God Himself and His Spirit of Revelation available to teach us if we humble ourselves to His leading!!
Remember, the word of God came to us in unlearned men. Even Paul was learned of all Judaism, but the Gospel of Grace was not given to him by man, but by direct Revelation by God in Jesus Christ. And thus we are to learn the same!!
1Jn 2:27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
Heb 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
Heb 8:11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
Joh 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Joh 6:45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.
Let God be true and everyman a liar, even me. God Bless, Sola Scriptura, as revealed by His Holy Spirit our Teacher!!!
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