The conflict will always be beyond your strength. The enemy always pushes us beyond our personal, inbred, preset limits concerning how far we will go for God. The test kills the limits of our humanity, until we are like Christ in everything. We are left with a choice: Become Christlike or gradually shrivel into superficial hypocrites: angry people who have stopped walking with God, who blame others for our bitterness.
For a Christian to defy adversities is to "despise" chastisement. Instead of hardening himself to endure stoically, there should be a melting of the heart.
Our faith, trust, and love are proved and revealed in adversities, that is, in difficult and grievous outward and inward circumstances, during sickness, sorrow, and privations.
If you know people in your church or your neighborhood that are facing adversity, I encourage you to offer a hand of friendship to them. That is what Jesus would do.
The deepest need that you and I have in weakness and adversity is not quick relief, but the well-grounded confidence that what is happening to us is part of the greatest purpose of God in the universe - the glorification of the grace and power of his Son - the grace and power that bore Him to the cross and kept him there until the work of love was done.
The conflict will always be beyond your strength. The enemy always pushes us beyond our personal, inbred, preset limits concerning how far we will go for God. The test kills the limits of our humanity, until we are like Christ in everything. We are left with a choice: Become Christlike or gradually shrivel into superficial hypocrites: angry people who have stopped walking with God, who blame others for our bitterness.