Hi Greg,
Well why do we have trials and tribulation? Isn't it to reveal the carnal self in all of us? If we are God's chosen then He will reveal our sin that it may be overcome and that is the process, revealing overcoming. By the Spirit indwelling we are judging ourselves, we are striving to do better, we are beginning to be shaped into His image.
When we have sin (whatever it may be), God's Spirit will reveal it to us, then He causes us to hate it (does the world really hate sin?). The process moves along, from hating it so much, to eventually over time removing/overcoming whatever it is.
So these trials are what God specially prepares for His chosen, each person has their own circumstances designed for them, to create in them whatever God wants them to be. That is how God works through Christ in us to overcome and to prepare us for the kingdom.
http://bible-truths.com/email4.htm#trial -------------------
Not everything in the Bible is "easy" to understand. It takes God's spirit and it take wisdom. God supplies both.
God does send custom made trials to all of us. He does NOT, however, do the "trying" in these trials.
A trial is where evidence is presented to determine one's guilt or innocence. God is far above us carnal matters. God already knows IN ADVANCE what we will or will not do under our trials.
Therefore, He does not determine from the evidence whether we passed or failed the trial; whether we are guilt or innocent. The trial is for OUR benefit, not HIS!
http://bible-truths.com/email4.htm#afraid -----------------
I don't have "doubts about God" nor do I question how He is running His Creation. That doesn't mean that I completely understand everything, however.
There are just so many basic problems and trials that frustrate most people: Health, social, financial, mental and emotional, and spiritual. Everything else comes under one of those categories. Few people suffer from all of these at the same time--some, however, do. These problems humble us. Humility is the first step in coming to God. One cannot MAKE himself humble, however. And it does no good to PRETEND to be humble. God has ways of accomplishing this. Just BEING poor, sick, rejected and emotionally unstable, does not prove one is humble. It is a thing of the heart and the spirit.
http://bible-truths.com/email11.htm#temptation -------------
Why would Jesus tell us to pray that God should NOT lead us into temptation [Gk: trial] when, in reality, we DO go through trials?
After all, Jesus was led of the spirit into the wilderness for the express purpose of being "tried."
Then James comes along and says
"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, NEITHER TEMPTS HE ANY MAN." (James 1:13).
And if that is bad enough, James first tells us in James 1:2 to
"...COUNT IT ALL JOY WHEN YE FALL INTO DIVERS TEMPTATIONS"!
What is going on here?
Although this might sound like a triple contradiction, it is not.
First let's be abundantly clear that God, HIMSELF, does not ever do the actual "trying or tempting."
"And the SERPENT said unto Eve... And when the woman SAW that the tree was good for food, and that it was PLEASANT TO THE EYES ['...the lust of the eyes ... is NOT OF the Father...' John 2:16], and a tree to be DESIRED to make one wise, she TOOK of the fruit thereof, and DID EAT... And the woman said, THE SERPENT BEGUILED [deceived] ME..." (Gen. 3:6 & 13).
"And lead us not into temptation but DELIVER US FROM THE EVIL ONE [Satan]" (Matt. 6:13).
"...when YOU FALL into divers [various] temptations [trials]..." (James 1:2).
"But every man is tempted, when he is DRAWN AWAY OF HIS OWN LUST, and enticed. THEN when lust has conceived, it brings forth SIN: and sin, when it is finished [full grown], brings DEATH" (James 1:14-15).
From all of these examples it is abundantly clear that it is not the OBJECT that is the TEMPTATION, but rather the temptation COMES FROM WITHIN, not from without. It was not the "tree" that MADE Eve lust. It is not the "pretty woman" that MAKES a man lust. The LUST IS IN THE MIND, IN THE HEART, and therefore, the trial IS IN THE HEART AND MIND, not in the literal flesh.
And so we pray that God should not lead us into temptation, but rather DELIVER US FROM THE EVIL ONE [Satan] WHO DOES LEAD US INTO TEMPTATION.
But notice again, we pray that we should be "DELIVERED." We cannot be 'delivered' from something UNLESS WE ARE ALREADY IN IT! God intends that we get "IN IT"--trials and temptations, which are GOOD FOR US, AFTER we have gone through them.
The longer we live the Christian walk, the better we should get at this. Hence Paul tells us,
"For if we would JUDGE OURSELVES, we should not be judged" (I Cor. 11:31).
The MORE we 'judge ourselves' the LESS we are "lead into temptation." We learn to cut it off at the pass, as they say. It is by God's divine counsel that we are led into temptation (even if God never DIRECTLY tries or tempts us), and it is by God's divine counsel that He delivers us from the "evil one."
Hope that helps a little.
God be with you,
Ray