Title: Leave Your Burdens on God
John's Gospel (88) Put your burdens on God (John 15:1-5)
"There are difficulties in life too"
A girl had Mama when she was young. It got better, but there were mama marks on my face. Tears came out when I looked in the mirror, and I had no will to live because of my severe inferiority complex. My mother, who felt sorry for her, held her hand one day and said, "Hey! Don't be too disappointed with your face! When you were young, 3 of you got Mama at the same time, and 2 of your friends died, but God saved only you! So your mother's mark is not a mark of shame, it is a mark of grace!"
Some shout out. "you! Live like me! I am better than you!” That loud noise disappears as soon as your child has a high fever and groans for a few days. In the same way, the more a person suffers, the more advanced he becomes, the wiser, the more mature he becomes, and the more he develops true faith. After all, there is a huge difference between having faith and not having faith. Without faith, even if there are many possibilities, we will eventually fail because we are frustrated with small things.
Some sales kings laugh every time a sale is turned down. Someone was curious and asked. “Do you still laugh even if you are rejected like that?” He answered. “In my experience, it takes an average of 11 rejections for a product to sell. But if I get rejected one more time, I feel good because I think the time to sell is near.” How confident is your life? Believe and rejoice in such trials that you will draw closer to God and bring you closer to blessings.
<Leave your burden on God>
This text is often known as the ‘parable of the vine and branches’. Jesus compared Himself to a true vine and said that He was sanctified to bear much fruit (verses 1-2). Why do trials come to the saints? In order to make the spirit more likely to bear fruit more fruitful. When trials come, the unchosen turn away from the Lord, but the chosen children cling tighter to the vine.
Of course, trials are not given in the first place. First, we purify our hearts with the words of the Bible, the sermons, and the words of our conscience (verse 3). Still, if you go the wrong way, then the Lord's guiding staff turns into a striking stick. If you do not turn back even then, the stick will turn into a whip of tribulation. There are many times when we come back into the bosom of the Lord crying in pain only after getting sick and failing after being whipped by the scourge of tribulation.
Always strive to abide in the Lord (v. 4). Then you will have the peace to accept the things you cannot change, and the courage and passion to change the things you can change. It also develops the ability to distinguish between ‘changeable’ and ‘unchangeable’. Also, from then on, you will realize grace, and you will develop a heart of gratitude for everything. The first thing to do before doing God's work is to be thankful for everything.
In human relationships, if you try to entrust one's burden to others, the relationship will deteriorate, but in a relationship with God, if you try to entrust one's burden to God, the relationship deepens. God is not a God who takes away suffering, but a God who gives more and gives us a deeper taste of God's love through the process of overcoming suffering. No matter how many weaknesses you have, if you are in the Lord and in the Word, your weaknesses will turn into strengths and crises will turn into opportunities.