Through the vale of tears.
Posted by appolus on October 25, 2019
For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;(Php 1:29)
A wise man once wrote ” Friction is the polish that shines our graces.” Another way of saying that could be ” suffering is the path that leads to glory.” This is never a popular teaching, but suffering is a gift from God in the sense that it helps to sanctify us and shape us and teach us. The flesh screams out against ever going down that path. As mere humans we would never personally choose to go down such a path. Yet do you know what that path is called dear saint? It’s called the narrow path and it leads to life. One might ask “how can trials and humiliations , pain and suffering and even sometimes death lead to life?” As Christians, do we really need to ask that question? This was the life of Christ. He was acquainted with suffering, He was a man of sorrows. Some would teach that He suffered so that we would not have to. This is not true. He overcame suffering and hell and death so that we could overcome too in His name and by the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures tells us that “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him; (Heb 5:8-9) If you are suffering today and in the midst of a sore trial, I want to encourage you. God is in control. He knows and He sees. There is nothing lost not a single tear. One day soon, all of those tears will be wiped away in the glories of heaven. Dear saint, you are not alone. You have brothers and sisters all over the world who too are passing through this vale of tears, this passage through the valley of weeping.
Now weeping may last through the midnight hours but joy shall find you on the morrow. You have a heart that cries out to the living God. Your soul longs to be away with Him to that place, the courts of the Lord. That place where just one moment in His presence is better than a thousand elsewhere. These moments are found along the valley floor, the valley of weeping. They are pools of living waters to refresh the weary saint as he journeys home. Living waters and the tears of all the saints that have went before you. Lift up your eyes saints and see the journey’s end. The Lord Himself and the place that He has prepared for you. Keep your eyes on the eternal horizon and remember your calling. It is calling to you, it is reminding you by by a whisper on the wind and that small still voice in your ear which speaks to your heart. Can you hear His voice calling you? Your steps are ordered of God, never let the enemy convince you otherwise. Put one more step in front of the other and the Lord will strengthen you. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.
A Call To The Remnant 
Homer Les said
Amen. Very true.
appolus said
Thank you Homer, God bless you……………..bro Frank
Rebecca said
The LORD led me to this … I wept as I watched and listened. I won’t ever look at Gethsemane the same … first I knew that the very word Gethsemane means olive press … so I have previously studied how the ancients pressed olives into oil. The olive press is a huge round boulder that looks like a big rock doughnut.
It is held secure in a round trough like rock that has a channel for the oil from the pressed olives to run into big stone vats. They would put a long solid piece of wood through the hole … a donkey or man would turn that piece of wood around and around causing the doughnut shaped boulder to crush the olives … they would do this until the olives were no more than a flattened mass…but then as if that did not satisfy they would scrape up the flattened olives in flat mesh like bags and stack them under a large square boulder and press even more oil out. The first batch is called virgin olive oil … the best. The second batch is used too but isn’t considered the best.
So all this to say when our Christ was on his face in a ‘Gethsemane’ he was being crushed with the weight of our sins … so crushed was he that he ‘sweated blood.’
The LORD led me to this today … why? Because one day sooner or later each one of us are going to be asked to stand for our faith in Jesus … we will either deny Him or we will suffer AND as we live each day we are given a choice to lose this secular comfortable life and what that means … to walk the narrow path for His sake which means to suffer … denying self …taking up a cross and following Him. Jesus said For whoever desires to save his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it.(Matthew 16 Mark 8)
This video is heart wrenching because of two things: First the suffering of Jesus who drank the cup because of God’s love for mankind … His redemption plan and because I so often fail Him in remembering the cost of my salvation.
He is leading His sheep on a very narrow path that few find … my hearts desire is to be one of those who sees eternity with Jesus as greater than anything or anyone that this life here can offer.
We must not ever ‘play’ at this life’s walk … there is much at stake.
appolus said
Such a good word………………..bro Frank