God favoured me
"So it is right that I should feel as I do about all of you, for you have a special place in my heart. You share with me in the special favor of God, both in my imprisonment and in defending and confirming the truth of the Good News" (NIV) Philippians 1:7
I can imagine how it will feel to be “disappointed” by God. Yeah, I know you might lift your eyebrow because with God, there is nothing like disappointment. Yet many of us consider our hard-hitting times as God disappointing and abandoning us. But when we read the above scripture, we realize what the apostles considered that as the extent of favor. They appreciated the bad times and the good times. They counted it all as joy, in fact a special favor, something they didn’t even deserve in their position. Their situation could have been worse (separation from God eternally- spiritual death) but instead God favored them to be in prisons, others were shipwrecked, beheaded etc. Similarly as Christians, we may have our share of challenges. Some challenges could be economic/financial imprisonment, political upheavals, suffering: physically, emotionally due to constant conflicts and wars, among many others.
However, let us remember that all these trials and temptations cannot be compared to the privilege we have in Christ. If Jesus our Lord was tempted then we should be rest assured that we will face similar situations but the good news is that he overcame them so shall we. The devil will try every minute and hour to derail us from God’s word but let us focus on our prize and crown that awaits us. We could have had worse challenges than what we may be going through today; but Jesus favored and saved us. Let this under-serving favor bring us daily on our knees and help us understand that no situation is as worse as losing our salvation.
Therefore, as we go through the day, let’s remember this: the devil, our enemy will try to break us but he will never triumph over us if only we don’t give him the chance. God has favored us dearly beloved in Christ and we welcome all who will want to share in this favor by accepting Jesus as his/her personal Lord and Savior. Submit yourself graciously to baptism for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38-40).