The Life of Favor

“Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory.” Rom 8:17.

Looking at this verse we see a double “if.” That tells us that the first part is true if the second part is true. Today the Lord led me to this verse and when I was done reading, He said the following;

“Man has a teaching that, when his life pleases Me, I show him favor. Will that man think suffering is favor? And if his season of conflict is over and I work glory in him, will he then take credit for it, seeing that he thinks he has pleased Me? These are not My reasonings.

Man thinks to have a blessed life that he does well. It is a life that, when other men look upon it, they will think I favor the blessed man. This, then has become man’s seal of approval; the blessed and favored life. If there comes trouble into that life, the man will lose his friends and his standing in the church. This happens because men love their blessings . . . men love their lives.

I did not prophesy that there would come a generation of men who would only receive blessing and favor. Rather, that great tribulation such as none had seen before would come on the earth. Somehow these people who seek My blessing and favor think they will escape hardship. They do not see that there is a great war taking place around them, and that, to win against their enemy, they must “not love their lives so much as to shrink from death,” (Rev 12:11b). Rather, their love of life causes them to think on their image before Man; the image of favor.”

We have an account of those first century Christians whose lives pleased the Lord. In Hebrews 10 we read that they were persecuted and had their property confiscated (vs 32-34). The writes says of them that they lived by faith. They would receive their reward, whereas those who shrank back displeased God (vs 38). Reward comes to those whose lives may not seem to be favored, on outward appearance. If we shrink not from the death of our lives as we would want them to be, and we accept hardship and suffering in its appointed seasons, then we are heirs and co-heirs with Christ. Amen.