Life can be hard, harder than hard at times. There are those moments in all of our lives when we think the difficulty is so large that there is no way out. It’s over. I’ve come to the end. We so often face situations where we think all is lost, and we’re done. Forget about it. It will never change. It’s easy to lose heart in difficult times. Life allows things that begin to look as if all is against you. There is no way out. God will even send you a brother or a sister to encourage you, but you quickly dismiss their words and their help, because you’re convinced, it won’t change.

Elisha’s servant was in this exact place in 2 Kings 6. He woke up one morning to see a Syrian army approaching to capture him. It overwhelmed him. He cried out to Elisha, “Alas, my master, what shall we do?” With all that he saw, he panicked. He didn’t know what to do. But Elisha did. He prayed. He prayed that God would open the eyes of his servant, so that he could see it’s not as bad as it appeared.

Just like Elisha’s servant, what is needed in times like these is for God to open our eyes to see what we cannot see spiritually.

There is a hidden spiritual realm all around us. It’s real but unseen. There is the physical and the spiritual. Unfortunately, the physical tends to get all of our attention and focus. It forces itself into the forefront, into our face, our mind! You get an email. A phone call. Eyes see. Hearts feel. Minds race. It’s easy to lose sight of the spiritual because of the physical. We have to train ourselves to be sensitive to see the spiritual.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, NKJV).

Sadly, living as we do in this material world, we get so involved in the physical, material things of life, where that is all we ever see.

We lose sight of the spiritual. We lose sight of God! We get so concerned about the opposition that is facing us. The power of the enemy, especially when we begin to fight the forces of the world. How hard it is. How hopeless it seems! We are like this servant. What we see discourages us! ALAS! We falsely conclude almost every day, “Oh there’s no way we can withstand them!”

“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4, NKJV).

“What can we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else” (Romans 8:31-32, NLT).

These truths are ours in Christ. Don’t forget them. Memorize them. Hide them in your heart. God is greater. God is stronger. God is faithful. When our eyes are on the situation, panic takes over. We freak out when we see our enemies, when we face our difficulties.

Pastor Chuck Smith taught us, “The longer we look at our problem, the bigger it gets!” It’s true! The problems surrounding our lives can seem so big that we don’t even see or feel God anymore! We are like Elisha’s servant here saying, “It’s over! Nothing we can do. Let’s just throw up our hands and give up.” Don’t give up!

Oh, that God would open our eyes, that we might see the spiritual.

Elisha prayed that his servant’s eyes would be open, and they were! He saw the stronger army of God surrounding the place. I pray that in every situation we are in, we would not only see the problems around us but also the solutions! When the eyes of the servant were open, he could see the spiritual parts behind the scenes; he saw that the angels of the Lord were surrounding the Syrians, the horses and chariots of fire surrounding the Syrian army. What a difference it made in his whole outlook.

“And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army, surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, ‘Alas, my master! What shall we do?’ So he answered, ‘Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ And Elisha prayed, and said, ‘LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.’ Then the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:15-17, NKJV).

When we only look at the material things, so often we say, “We’ve had it!”, but when God opens our eyes, and we see the spiritual dimension, it changes completely. We say, “They’ve had it!” Oh, that we would see the power of God! The power that God has made available to us. Those resources that are ours in the realm of the Spirit.

Looking back, isn’t it true that God has been faithful? Isn’t it true God was faithful? What was the big problem 10 years ago? Ten days ago? God came through. He did then. He will again!

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing” (James‬ ‭1:2-4‬, ‭NLT).‬‬ ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

A CULTURE THAT PREFERS EASE

Near where I live in Oceanside, California, is a bike path known as the San Luis Rey River Trail. It is a path that you can ride a bike or walk on that will take you 10.7 miles from the eastern part of Oceanside all the way to the beach. My wife and I have ridden our bikes down that path many times. The trail is a fairly flat and easy ride that is safe and fun. However, when the wind picks up, the ride can become extremely challenging, and sometimes the wind can be blowing so strongly that you barely feel like you are moving at all. I don’t know anyone who enjoys riding against the wind unless, of course, you are on a motorcycle. Don’t motorcyclists like to talk about the wind in their faces? On a bicycle, however, we prefer the wind at our backs.

What is true of a bicyclist is equally true of the Christian life; we prefer the wind at our backs instead of in our faces. It is a part of the mindset of the age in which we live. The current mindset tends to regard burdens, struggles, hardship and pain as simply bad and to be avoided at all cost. This age will medicate, distract, deny and try virtually anything to make the burdens go away.

LEARN TO LEAN INTO THE WIND

However, according to God’s word, the struggles and the trials we encounter and the pain that often accompany them have a purpose. James tells us that the purpose of the trial is to produce something in us. The trial produces endurance. Trials are not meant to break us; they are meant to make us stronger, to make us better, not bitter. But here is what we must understand: That the result all depends on how we respond to the difficulties. It is for this reason that James says, “So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” Let it grow; learn to embrace it’s difficulties; learn to lean into rather than away from them.

RUN AT THE GIANTS INSTEAD OF FROM THEM

In the story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17, we see young David coming upon the battle scene. The army of Israel was encamped on one hillside and the army of the Philistines was encamped on the other side. In the valley between was the giant Goliath who stood over nine feet tall. Every day for 40 days, Goliath issued the challenge to the army of Israel to send out a man. For 40 days no one volunteered until David showed up. David arrived on the scene and heard the rants of Goliath and said, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he would defy the armies of the living God?” Why did David see the situation differently from everyone else? According to the Reese Chronological Bible, and many Bible scholars support this information, David wrote Psalms 8 and 19 shortly before coming to the battlefield. In these two Psalms, David found himself meditating on the majesty and glory of God. In Psalm 8:1 he writes, “O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, who have set Your glory above the heavens!” Also, in verses three through four, David declares, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?”

David was contemplating similar things when he wrote Psalm 19:1-4, in which he declared:

• The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.
• Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge.
• There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.
• Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

THE GIANTS ARE OUR BREAD

So when David approached the battlefield, he had already been contemplating the bigness, the glory, the majesty and the power of Almighty God. The result of that mindset was that he saw Goliath, who was the trial, the challenge and the obstacle, as something little in light of the bigness of his God! I love hearing about what David does when he was finally cleared by King Saul to go out and face the giant.

We are told in 1 Samuel 17:48 that David RAN AT GOLIATH! People who believe in a big God who loves them learn to run at adversity. They learn to run toward the trial knowing that God is going to use it to do something great in them and through them. I love what Caleb said about the giants in Numbers 14:9. When the other 10 spies were seeking to discourage the people of Israel from going into the land of promise because of the giants in the land, Caleb declared, “Only do not rebel against the LORD, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them.”

Consider that line: They are our bread! They are our nourishment, in other words. They are the very obstacles that God wants to use to nourish and strengthen our faith! When is the last time you looked at a trial with this perspective?

I, too, am challenged by the early church’s response when they were faced with persecution. Acts 4 tells us that they gathered together to pray. I think most of us would be prone to pray that the persecution would stop, that it would be taken away. They, however, prayed for boldness to speak and to stand in the midst of the persecution. Why did they pray that way?They knew that Jesus loved them; they knew that Jesus was with them, and they knew that Jesus had promised that persecution would come. So instead of running from difficulty, they leaned into it. In reality, they were leaning into Jesus, believing that what He said was true. Trials had a purpose, and the purpose was to make them more like Jesus and to help them impact their world for the gospel. Someone once said, “Don’t pray for a lighter load; pray for a stronger back.” Lean into Jesus by leaning into the trial and watch how He shows up with strength and power to help you be victorious!

When Jesus ascended into heaven after His resurrection, He told His disciples, “You shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The Greek word He used for witnesses is martys, from which we get our English word martyr, a person killed for their beliefs. Indeed, a martyr is a profoundly powerful example of what it means to be a witness—sealing one’s faith and devotion to Jesus by laying down one’s life.

Not all of Jesus’ disciples were called to be His witnesses through violent death, but in the Early Church Era, under severe persecution, many of His followers did indeed suffer for His name’s sake as a mighty witness to the power and truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Along with the threat of heresies such as Gnosticism, persecution was one of the greatest external threats faced by the Early Church. Although the Jews and others were in some ways hostile toward Christians, the most extensive persecutions came at the hands of the Roman Empire; in fact, in his Book of Martyrs, Foxe denotes ten distinct periods of Roman persecution of the Church that took place sporadically over the first few centuries of its existence. There were several reasons why the Empire targeted the Christian Church.

1. PRACTICES:

As we have seen previously, Christian belief and practice was very distinct from that of the Roman culture around them. Christians believed many things considered odd to the pagan mind. For one thing, they rejected the multiple deities of the Romans to serve one God alone, one not represented by any image or idol. Oddly enough, for this reason they were often labeled “atheists.” They also rejected unethical activities like gladiator battles and theater performances, and they refrained from engaging in any work associated with Roman deities.

The Christians themselves had practices that were considered strange to the Romans. As oppression increased, Christians were forced to become cautious and secretive, which gave the Roman mind freedom to speculate about their gatherings. For example, rumors abounded that the Lord’s Supper was actually a cannibalistic affair in which Christians ate the flesh and drank the blood of their master. The use of the holy kiss led the Romans to believe that the Christians were engaged in raucous orgies when they met together. And the fact that Christians referred to each other as “brother” and “sister” gave rise to rumors of incest among them. While these rumors were wildly misconstrued and false, it was because the Christians were so different from the rest of society that many people believed such absurdities.

2. POLITICS:

As the Roman Empire grew, it was more difficult to maintain control of the various people groups they conquered. It became clear that steps must to be taken toward the unification of the Empire if it was going to survive. Somehow, allegiance to Rome must be secured among such a diverse array of peoples and cultures. Because religion can exert powerful sociopolitical influence, Rome ultimately decided that worship of the Emperor as a deity would serve as the greatest unifying force.

The Romans thus took a very pragmatic, political stance toward the religions of the peoples they conquered; they were very tolerant of all belief systems as long as Emperor worship was included in them. The Jews were the only exception to this rule, as they stubbornly insisted on worshiping the one true God, Yahweh. However, because the Jews kept to themselves, Rome didn’t consider them much of a threat or concern. So as long as Christians appeared to be part of Jewish culture and religion, they were in Rome’s eyes just as harmless.

However, it soon became apparent that the Christians were very persistent in evangelizing or “proselytizing.” They weren’t just going to keep to themselves like the Jews; their hope was to bring the whole Empire to Christ! Politically speaking, the Romans viewed the Christians as a serious threat to their plan to unify the Empire through Emperor worship, because they refused to bow to Caesar when Jesus alone was Lord of their lives. Thus, the Church was seen as treacherous and disloyal to Rome. C.P.S. Clarke says that Rome viewed the Church, “…Much as a gigantic Sinn Fein or Trade Union organization might be, as an independent and possibly hostile state within the State.”¹

In fact, the Christians’ refusal to participate in Emperor worship was the greatest reason for their persecution over such a long period of time; the political unity of the Empire simply would not allow for such defiance.

3. PROBLEMS:

In light of these things, it wasn’t too much of a stretch for the Romans to find a convenient scapegoat in the Christian Church whenever there were problems of any kind in the Empire—Christians were secretive, they were strange, they made the Romans uncomfortable with their way of life, and they refused to worship the Emperor, so they must be up to no good!

The event that actually instigated extreme persecution of the Church occurred in 67 A.D. when the city of Rome experienced a devastating fire. Shockingly, Emperor Nero was apparently seen singing and playing an instrument outside the city as he calmly watched it burn, which led to rumors that perhaps he was responsible for the conflagration. What added to suspicion was the fact that the majority of the fire took place in a derelict area of the city, and that Nero constructed a huge palace on the ruins. It seemed very possible that he had started the fire himself in order to “prepare” a place for his new palace.

When Nero heard that this story was circulating, he realized he needed to blame the tragedy on another group under suspicion—the Christian Church. By blaming these upstarts for the fire, the Emperor effectively turned the anger of the people onto the Christians and instigated the first official persecution of the Church. From this time on, the precedent was set that anything bad happening in the Empire was somehow the fault of the Christians; they became the scapegoats for any problems or calamities that befell the Romans.

Over the course of the next 250 years, hundreds of thousands of Christians gave their lives for Jesus, boldly refusing to deny their faith in the face of such horrors as beheading, crucifixion, burning at the stake, slaughter by wild animals and being stretched on the rack.

And yet Jesus had declared in Matthew 16:18 that the gates of Hades would not prevail against His Church. And so John Foxe notes, “Though persecuting malice raged, yet the Gospel shone with resplendent brightness; and, firm as an impregnable rock, withstood the attacks of its boisterous enemies with success. Tertullian, who lived in this age, informs us that if the Christians had collectively withdrawn themselves from the Roman territories, the empire would have been greatly depopulated.”² It’s no wonder that the church father Tertullian stated, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church!” As Christians laid down their lives for Jesus, countless more arose in their place, and no act of Rome could stop it!

The Christians in the Early Church Era, while facing at times horrific torture and brutality for their faith, were given by God the remarkable grace to “count it all joy” (James 1:2) in the midst of such evil, considering it a minor thing to suffer for the sake of the One who had suffered and died for them. Their gaze was fixed on eternity and the joy of their Lord that awaited them.

In response to their vibrant and victorious witness, countless onlookers gave their lives to Jesus Christ, and God’s Church prevailed. As an early Christian apologist put it, “Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life.”³

Truly the witness of the martyrs not only inspires and challenges us today, but affirms to us the truth of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 4:8-10—“We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.”

¹C.P.S. Clarke, Church History from Nero to Constantine
²John Foxe, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs

³Unknown, Letter to Diognetus

One day Paul and his ministry buddy, Silas, got thrown into a filthy prison for freeing a slave girl from demon possession. The local magistrates ordered them beaten and placed in stocks in the inner dungeon, a place full of rats, disease, and all kinds of filth. Nobody had washed off their dried blood, and now it was caked on their raw backs. In fact, no one did anything to help them. They simply left them in this miserable condition.

Imagine if you were thrown in a Tijuana jail, with no one to bail you out. No one knows where you are; they know only that you went on a ministry trip to Mexico. They have no idea why you haven’t returned. No doubt you’d be wondering, What’s going to happen to me? How long will I be here? And you’d probably ask, “Why, God? Lord, did You really call us to Mexico? Did we make a mistake?” Questions would fly through your mind. But my question to you is: How do you suppose you would react?

Paul and Silas reacted by singing praises to the Lord.

Sitting in those painful stocks, the two men prayed and sang praises. The other prisoners heard them—and you can well imagine the crude remarks they employed to tell Paul and Silas to just shut up. But at midnight the bars began to shake when a strong earthquake rumbled the very foundations of the prison. All the cell doors burst open, awakening the guard. Figuring that the prisoners had all escaped—and fearing his inevitable and severe punishment—the guard took out his sword to commit suicide.

“Don’t do harm to yourself!” Paul called out. “We are all here.”

In the darkness the guard sought out Paul and Silas, and in a trembling voice said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” God used Paul’s miserable condition to bring another soul to Him.

When we find ourselves in difficult, confusing circumstances, what a great opportunity we have to pray and to praise the Lord! You might not be able to praise God for your circumstances, but you can praise Him. Because even though your feet are locked in stocks, your spirit is free. Rather than feeling sorry for yourself because of your physical misery, you can sing praises to your Lord. You never know who might be listening.

But that takes a transformed heart!

As you pray and sing, you will find your faith growing and your worries fleeing. Soon you can find yourself rejoicing in the goodness of God, in the greatness of His power and the immensity of His love, knowing He’s in control and Jesus will not fail.

As a young boy my brother had serious asthma attacks. Whenever he would get one, my mother would come into the room, lift him out of bed and carry him to an old rocking chair that squeaked whenever someone used it. My mother would rock him in that chair, and as I would lay there in bed, I could hear him wheezing and fighting for breath. I could also hear my mother singing: “Jesus never fails, Jesus never fails. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but Jesus never fails.” That song became her anthem.

As my three siblings and I grew up, we often required Mom’s help. She would pray and she would sing, “Jesus never fails.” It became so much her life theme that when she died, we had those words inscribed on her tombstone. If you were to visit my mother’s grave at Fairhaven Cemetery, you would see the words, “Jesus never fails.” And He hasn’t yet, and He won’t.

The really interesting thing is that not long ago I was in Santa Barbara, presiding over a memorial service for a relative. My mother’s mother had been buried at that cemetery. So we asked at the office where we could find my grandmother’s burial place. They showed us its location on a map and after the service we went looking for my grandmother’s grave. I had never been there before, so you can imagine my surprise when we found it and I read her tombstone: “Jesus never fails.”

What a marvelous testimony to pass down from generation to generation. You can put that on my tombstone when I go: “Jesus never fails.”

You may be going through some hardships. There may be some difficult things that you just don’t understand—the “whys” of whatever is happening to you. But know this: He loves you, He’s concerned, He knows all about it, He’s in control, and Jesus will not fail. That conviction, more than anything, will transform you into a follower of Christ whose heart beats wholly for Him.

– excerpted from Love The More Excellent Way by Chuck Smith