Adversity Means Advance

Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel.

Phil 1:12

Paul is in jail in Rome, writing to his friends far across the sea in Philippi. He manifests a reaction that inevitably makes the world sit up and take notice. He understood that adversity means advance. The manifestation of this kind of attitude is a test of Christian maturity. The Christian who has become well enough acquainted with the God of the impossible whom he serves, knows that even through apparent defeat, God still is able to work. Such a Christian has begun to grow up in the Lord. He recognizes that in God obstacles are really opportunities, and nothing can really imperil the gospel. That is an amazing declaration when you think about it. Nothing that is intended to defeat ever brings defeat, that God works His way despite the obstacles, and all obstacles only serve ultimately to spread Christian faith.

I ran across the story of a Swiss French pastor who was imprisoned by the Nazis during World War II. He said this: I was not able to stand firm except by remembering every day that the Gestapo was the hand of God — the left hand. The worst of tyrants will only end by accomplishing Christ's will.

That is the glorious mark of Christianity that has made it an invincible force through all the centuries. Here is Paul, under arrest, chained day and night to a Roman soldier, unable to leave the house or the city of Rome. Imagine what this must have meant to the restless, surging spirit of this man. God had sent him out under His commission that was to take him to the very ends of the earth.

It must have been easy for Paul to be discouraged. There is no doubt he was tempted many times to feel sorry for himself and to wonder why God would ever let this kind of thing happen to him when all he was trying to do was fulfill God's will. Do you ever feel that way? It must have been easy for him to chafe under these circumstances as month by month goes grinding on and there seems to be no change. But as we read the letters that come from him out of those days there is not one word of complaint. Instead there is a marvelously triumphant spirit, and an expression of confidence. Why? When he was tempted he undoubtedly fell back on what he knew about his God. In other words, in the face of temptation to fret and chafe, he believed God.

Earlier he had written to these very Roman Christians with whom he was now meeting. All things work together for good to those who love God, who are the called according to His purpose. He believed that! Even though the immediate hour didn't bring relief, he believed Him, and out of that confidence he could see that even those things that seem to be against him are working out the purposes of God.

Father, I pray that I recognize that confidence doesn't come by some effort to convince myself, some struggle to think positively, but from a quiet resting upon an unchangeable fact — that Jesus Christ lives His life within me, and that He is quite competent to meet every situation. May I look to Him, and learn to rejoice in His victory.