HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div
“For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” (Hebrews 2:10).
- Steel is iron plus fire.
- Soil is rock, plus heat, or glacier crushing.
- Linen is flax plus the bath that cleans, the comb that separates, and the flail that pounds, and the shuttle that weaves.
The human character must have a plus attached to it. The world does not forget great characters. But great characters are not made of luxuries, they are made by suffering.
I heard of a mother who brought into her home as a companion to her own son, a crippled boy who was also a hunchback. She had warned her boy to be very careful in his relations to him, and not to touch the sensitive part of his life but go right on playing with him as if he were an ordinary boy. She listened to her son as they were playing; and after a few minutes he said to his companion: “Do you know what you have got on your back?” The little hunchback was embarrassed, and he hesitated a moment. The boy said: “It is the box in which your wings are; and someday God is going to cut it open, and then you will fly away and be an angel.”
Some day, God is going to reveal the fact to every Christian, that the very principles they now rebel against, have been the instruments which He used in perfecting their characters and moulding them into perfection, polished stones for His great building yonder.
Suffering is a wonderful fertilizer to the roots of the character. The great object of this life is character. This is the only thing we can carry with us into eternity. . . . To gain the most of it and the best of it is the object of probation.
“By the thorn road and no other is the mount of vision won.”
So let us continue to build the character that God wants from us in these last days. You have to be tried in the fire, through trials, persecutions, and many more areas until God is satisfied. There will be nothing short of perfection to enter into the Kingdom of God. So let us be prepared for this final leg of the journey.
