Hard Times in Perspective

Recently I began getting a magazine called The Banner of Truth that has been around for about 60 years and a magazine I aways admired.  Two of the articles are about John Calvin who is revered around Reformed circles.  And it is the 500th anniversary of his birth this year.

Calvin lost his only son shortly after birth, and three years latter his wife died who he had been married to for eight or nine years.  He suffered from migraine headaches, pleurisy, he could hardly speak and spat blood, haemorrhoid’s, gout and later kidney stones.  He passed one stone that lacerated his urinary canal.  He averaged 170 sermons a year during this time.  He was defending the Faith from inside and from outside.  Let me quote, “It was Luther himself who commented that it is vital to fight where the battle is, and this Calvin certainly did”.  As Beza put it: “There will be found no heresy ancient or revived, or newly founded in our time, which he did not destroy down to its foundations.” 

Yet he would often say, “We have a kind Father and a sovereign Lord, so that we submit because he is sovereign , and we trust because he is our loving Father working for our good.”

I came to this way of thinking years ago and God has made it so in my life.  My previously miserable life was part of his plan to make me a more compassionate person (II Corinthians 1: 3-7).  My disease in no mistake or a tragic circumstance because God loves me and this disease is part of his loving plan for my life.  Calvin knew that Christians never lose, are never defeated and are never poor (Romans 8). 

God is concerned about his Kingdom in which we play our small parts to make his Kingdom grow.  If you want to get an idea about God’s Kingdom read the Gospel of Matthew.

If you have had a cruel life and Christ has revealed himself to you and healed you we have nothing to complain about because our Father has given us all things through his Son Jesus Christ (I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory what will be revealed in us Romans 8:18 and No, in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death not life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord Romans 8:37-39).