Author: Rev. Lek Aik Wee

Every trial and tribulation in the believer’s life will serve to build him up to have a closer walk with God. Christ’s love will be experienced in those anguishing moments of trial.

The Christian living in an unchristian world upholding an eternal value system according to God’s Laws will often find himself being persecuted because he tries to live righteously as a just man before God and man! If Jesus, the perfect Man, the living and true God had to suffer such persecution and humiliation by wicked men who reject God, realize as Jesus said, “You are sent as sheep among wolves.” The believer must be prepared to endure hardship because he loves God and want to live a Christ honouring life before God and man. Quoting Psalm 44:22, the Apostle Paul described the believer’s identification with Christ as a cause for a troublous life.

The believer’s life is filled with many trials and temptations described as distress, persecution, famine, destitute of convenient or decent clothing, danger and even violence. But none of these can separate him from Christ’s love for him. What a powerful truth that still every aching heart. Oftentimes, he feels as if this is the end. He will not go through this impasse. But he needs to realize that he has a Sufficient High Priest who will help him.

In ancient Israel, the Levitical priests had to succeed one another because they kept dying, as one generation comes, another goes, time and tide waits for no man. But Jesus Christ needs no successor because He will not die. The fact that Christ will not die and need replacement by another priest means that He can see His work of delivering His people through to the end.

The believer stands justified to receive the past, present and eternal heavenly blessings because of what Jesus Christ had done for him. Christ died, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and seated in a position of authority to plead the believer’s cause before the Father! Jesus Christ will also be the final Judge. Hence, the believer is in a secure position having entrusted his soul to Jesus Christ. Jesus is both Chief Advocate and Judge. The courtroom metaphor best describes what Jesus has done and will do for the believer.

The Apostle Paul assures believers that God will not withhold anything good from them seeing that He has given His own Son for our redemption. God will do us good. He is working out His good will in our lives. Will he withhold anything good from us? Surely not! It is cause for praise and thanksgiving. There must be that assurance and restfulness of God’s abiding presence to help us.

The believer has the assurance that since God is with him, he will be kept safe under God’s protection. He expresses it by a conditional sentence stating that if God is for us, the outcome will surely be that none can overpower the will of God for our lives. The Apostle Paul has just described God’s salvific work in the believer’s life from election to calling, from calling to justification and from justification to glorification. He stills our heart by stating a truthful supposition.