One of the most difficult and challenging things in all of human experience is to place our faith in the God of the Bible to help us through a crisis.
The biblical narrative stories of faith have life-scripts that are filled with life-and-death challenges that are the direct opposite of the pursuit of a life-of-ease.
In God-composed journey of faith life-scripts in the Bible, there seems to be an equilibrium between the progress achieved in an adventure of faith and the spiritual opposition that pushes back, and/or the challenges inherent in simply choosing to do the right thing when this is hard.
Abraham and Sarah producing Ishmael, Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah, Joseph enduring the difficult training program in leadership in Egypt, Moses and the Israelites trapped at the shore of the Red Sea as the Egyptian chariot army approaches to destroy them, Joshua discouraged by the height and strength of the walled cities in Canaan like Jericho, Ruth’s leap of faith in following her mother-in-law to the foreign land of Israel, Hannah’s dilemma in not being able to provide her husband with children, David’s difficult walking through the valley of the shadow of death in preparation to become king…not o mention Elijah, Jeremiah, Esther and Mordecai, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Joseph and Mary, John the Baptist, Peter, James, John, and Paul to name only a few from the Bible.
But why does Jesus the perfect and sinless Son of God encounter resistance from the very time of His birth?
One reason is that His life must be a model for ours, in order to be real.
If the life-script for Jesus was a clear life-of-ease, then this reality would be an unattainable model for the vast majority of people.
But equally applicable, Jesus incarnate in a human body has the same adversary Satan that we do (Lk. 4:1-13).
I may be that resistance is the only way that strength is created…like lifting weights.
One thought is that life in this broken world cannot ever remove the counterforce of challenge, because this current environment is the perfect “boot camp” for discovering the genuine knowledge of good and evil when pursued through the redemptive salvation of grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
The parable of the rich fool (Lk. 12:16-21) describes the worldly unconventional approach of the biblical narrative stories of faith to pursue the higher ideal of a purposeful life that transcends above the mere pursuit of a life-of-ease.
The only resistance-free environment is the spiritual kingdom of God in heaven, that awaits believers in the upcoming eternity.
Trying to obtain it here and now is a fruitless endeavor (Mk. 8:34-38).
Rare metals like gold and silver are purified in the heat of a furnace.
Jesus did not need purifying or perfecting as He is the blemish-free Passover Lamb of God sacrifice for sin.
But He did have to model perfect faith and behavior in the face of opposition.
Jesus had to exemplify in action the divine character of God as the Passover Lamb of God in order to qualify as the substitutionary atonement for our sins so that we could with impunity venture-out into an adventure of faith without our many mistakes counting against us.
The brilliant program of redemptive salvation enables an adventure of faith following our God-composed journey of faith life-scripts amidst the resistance of the fiery furnace of spiritual opposition, but also the fundamental challenge of walking by faith and not be sight (2 Cor. 5:7; Heb. 11:1).
This reality is channeled and guided by God to produce lessons-learned that likewise qualify us through the blood shed by Jesus on the cross, and through His resurrection, to likewise be the children of God.
The Cross in the Christian Life 