Are you pressed in your life right now? Is there something in your life that is pressing you? Who reading this knows Jesus through your suffering? How many know Jesus through your victories? As successful as Paul’s ministry was, there were several moments when Paul was pressed beyond his limits.

There is a popular Church phrase that people use and often misconstrue. It’s from 1 Corinthians 10:13: “The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand“. They use this scripture as a catch-all phrase to encourage a person who’s going through a difficult time. They say “God never gives you more than what you can handle”. But this saying is far from the truth! We see in 2 Corinthians 1:8, that Paul acknowledges he and his companions were pressed well-beyond what they could take. When this happened, Paul was compelled to make a declaration.

Paul said “we were pressed beyond measure, beyond strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life”. I’ve said those words on more than one occasion. Pressed so hard, that you can’t even speak out the words “thy will be done”, because it hurts so bad. When things become too much for us, we say “God take it away”. “God take it away”. I despair even of life right now God, take it away. Take it away or take me away. Have you ever given God an ultimatum? Take it away God or take me away! Take it away God or I’m going to do “this”. Take it away God or I’m going to do “that”. Take it away God because I’m pressed beyond what I can handle, and if you don’t take it away, I’m going to do something desperate.

I’m going to hit this person. I’m going to punch this person. I’m going to hurt this person. You’re being pressed. That’s what it is like when you’re pressed like Paul was in 2 Corinthians 1:8. When all logic, all rational thinking and all clarity starts to blur, and all you can see and feel is despair. You’re being pressed. Ever been laid off from work? Longer than you expected. Longer than you wanted. Six months, eight months, a year. Don’t know how the bills are going to get paid. Late on many of them. Many people lost their jobs, their confidence, and their faith through covid. Some people’s faith got stronger. All of our faith got tested. Many of us were pressed like Paul was.

Do you have someone you love who was sick, whose life lay in the balance? The Doctors can’t do any more for them. They are just waiting now while you pray. Your little boy or your little girl battling leukemia. You are trying to balance work, your marriage, your home, your children, and your sanity. Hospital bills are higher than any amount of money you ever made in your life. Hospital bills are higher than what your house is worth. You’re being pressed. Someone’s been trying to find a job in their field for months now. Sending out resumes every day, and can’t get a call back. They get discouraged. Lose confidence. Wanna quit. Trying to muster the strength to stay positive and keep going.

Old temptations and sins you thought you were done with, come back to haunt you. Comes back when you’re vulnerable. Another word for vulnerable is weak. It comes back when you’re in a weakened state. Like falling down a hole that has no bottom. That’s how it feels to despair of life. Not that we think God can’t deliver us, but at this particular point, for God’s own reasons he’s not doing it. You’re being pressed beyond what you can handle.

Being pressed snatches all the energy out of you. It takes away your enthusiasm. Walking around doing everyday stuff becomes a chore. Smiling becomes a chore. Pretending that you’re doing well in the face of other people, becomes a chore. The normal routine becomes tiring. 

One thing we learn to do as Christians is “fake it”. God forbid someone discovers that you are having problems too. God for bid someone finds out that you have been struggling with pornography. God forbid someone finds out that this past week you’ve been tempted to drink after 7 years clean. God forbid someone found out how heartless and manipulative you sometimes can be. And if you don’t struggle with any of these problems, let someone interview your Spouse, or you best friend or some of your ex’s, so we can write down all your flaws that would fill an Encyclopedia Britannica!

These past few years have been very pressing for all of us. For some of you, you were pressed before the lockdowns, and your pressing carried into the lockdowns. You will endure more than you can ever imagine. If we could handle everything, then God would not be a necessity. As strong as we appear to be, we are the most fragile of all God’s creations. Not only can we be hurt physically, but we can be hurt spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically. It doesn’t take much to offend one of us. A word or a look would do the trick.

 I don’t recall anytime in the Bible, God saying we were strong. God speaks of his strength. Jesus speaks of his strength. But not once does God speak of our strength. God does not speak of strength in the same context that we tend to speak of strength to be. Living and enduring through severe hardships is what we consider to be “strength”. But the Bible expounds upon this. Living through these things alone is not the testament of a person’s strength. Nor is “living” through it. The Bible uses the word “endure”. The word endure is not just to “experience it”, it is to go through patiently while suffering. 

Many people live through suffering, but not many people endure until the end

Many people live through suffering, but not many people endure until the end. To endure is to suffer patiently unto the end of the suffering. The ability to endure suffering patiently is only possible in Christ. If you are not following Christ, you will experience suffering, but it will not be patiently. For most of us, when the pain starts, the quest to end it starts as well. We are quick to end our suffering. And we will go fighting against the suffering for weeks, months, and even years, never coming to the realization of what we were supposed to be doing in the times of suffering.

What I’m trying to say to you is, when you endure suffering patiently in Christ, you will still be able to fulfill your calling in the midst of the suffering. The suffering will not “freeze” you in your tracks, or stop you from proceeding in your calling. That is not the purpose of it. God would be very contrary, if he called you to do something, while at the same time bringing about a storm to stop you from progressing. 

Satan is the enemy of God’s plans. God uses Satan’s efforts to stop us, to grow us. This is where we endure the troubles, while progressing forward in faith. We see that Paul and his group “endured” the suffering patiently, by continuing the work God had called them to do, waiting for God to deliver them or bring them through. But I love what Paul says, because he does not illustrate to us a false description of what they were going through at the time. You can be blessed and still suffer. 

Pressing does several things in Gods favor. It strengthens our faith, it increases our endurance, it works out our patience, it reveals our limitations, and it increases our dependence on God. Our dependence on God will never evaporate. God does not want us strong in faith to not need him, he wants us strong in faith in order to always follow him in every circumstance. I preach about loneliness a lot. I believe this to be the biggest stumbling block between God and Man. 

You were never created to walk life by yourself, and when we don’t have the sufficient level of intimacy that as human beings we need, we go out and look for that level of intimacy in things. Constantly trying to make emotional “connections”  with things that can’t provide the level of intimacy that we are seeking. Whether we seek it through sex, material things, drugs, alcohol, worldly achievements, love and adoration of others, Parents, music, video games, social media, and a list of other things we use to try and fill the space that only intimacy can’t satisfy.

When we are pressed beyond our strength, tendencies get revealed. You get to see what your tendencies are. When you are being pressed, do you pray more or do you pray less? Do you get more dependent on God, or do you get frustrated to the point that your prayer life gets interrupted? When you are pressed do you align with God, or do you seek to run away from that which is pressing you? Know that God saw the thing that is pressing you, before you were in the womb. God keeps a hedge around all of us who love him. Nothing is allowed in or out without his permission. 

Whatever comes into your life, can not come in against God’s permission. No circumstance or event can overcome God’s sovereignty. We are further debunking the misquoted scripture in 1 Corinthians 10:13. God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can withstand. That is what God has promised concerning the temptations we will face due to our faith. Not our troubles. Our troubles would overtake and crush us without God’s grace. It is God’s grace that allows us to be pressed but not killed, not our ability or our own strength to handle the tribulations. 

Our response to adversity is to flee. God’s response for us often is to go through. If you’ve ever put your hand near a hot iron, on a hot stove, or over a hot oven, your response is to pull away, not stick your hand inside it to burn it further. It is God’s spirit that leads us through the burning paths of life. But why does God do this? God does nothing without purpose. He is always thinking purpose. When God leads us down the burning paths and thorny roads in our lives, he is burning away, and cutting away, the dead things of our lives.

Brothers and Sisters, I hate to write this, because on the one-had I know it means we must go through suffering, and on the other-hand when we come out we are better Christians and witnesses for Christ. When the Apostle Peter was pressed, he cut off a Roman soldier’s ear. When pressed further, he denied Jesus three times. When Judas was pressed he hung himself. Job was severely pressed when he questioned God and criticized his decision making. When Abraham was pressed he lied to Pharaoh about Sarah. When Elijah was pressed, he fled from Jezebel. In-fact the Bible says he ran so fast that he outran the chariots that Jezebel had sent to go after him. When Moses was pressed, he disobeyed God and lost membership into the promised land.

What do you do when you are pressed? What God is trying to cut away from you could be in that answer. What we don’t allow God to remove, gets worse overtime. Like an infection. God does not stop trying to remove it. You may find yourself going through the same circumstances over and over again. If that is the case, there may be something that you are not seeing that God is trying to get you to acknowledge. 

Try not to get frustrated. We cannot see anything clearly when we are frustrated and angry. When I’m pressed, I tend to get frustrated. I can be frustrated for a whole day. You know when God talks to me? When I calm down. You can’t have a reasonable conversation with anybody when their frustrated, angry and annoyed. Try it sometime and report back to me on how that conversation went.

“God does not try to fight through OUR frustrations and anger. He waits for the precise moment when you can actually hear him”

God does not try to fight through our frustrations and anger. He waits for the precise moment when you can actually hear him. We see this perfectly with Jonah. I will write about Jonah in my next lesson. It’s a fascinating story if you’re not familiar with it. Everyone knows about the whale, but we will look at the deeper things in the book of Jonah. God can do more with your prayer when you’re anxious, then you can do with all the things you have at your disposal. Your lack of action does not always equate to a lack of progress. Sometimes prayer and patiently waiting is more wise than trying to make something happen out of your own will and effort. Especially if God is the one who led you to the desert area. 

Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He was “led” by the spirit. He did not just arbitrarily go into the wilderness. I would not go into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, fasting for 40 days and 40 nights. I believe my story would look like this. Peter was driving on the road on his way home from work. A deer ran out on the road, causing his car to swerve all off the highway and crash into a ditch. With no cell phone service and a busted leg, authorities and rescue were not able to find him until over a month later. They found him in the deep wooded area where he had crawled and limped. God has his ways of putting you where he wants you to be lol. Whether you go voluntarily or involuntary.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians on why he shares with us the despair that was felt while ministering in Asia. He said “For we will not have you ignorant”. It was for our clarity, so we would not be ignorant of the things to come for us who serve the Lord. He is being transparent for anyone who is called to righteousness. That this calling is not a call to live a fabulous life. It is not the life preached by those who preach the prosperity gospel. It is not a call that will put millions of dollars into your bank account. There are jobs already that can do that. 

Serving God is not one of them. Most of these Churches that you see bringing in millions of dollars will fall to ruin. We are already seeing Church after Church fall due to correction. Many who set out to glorify the Lord, become corrupted by money, greed, influence and adoration. Pride is the tree in which all these sins hang from.

We need more preachers like Paul’s to tell us “how it is”. We are seeing people sell Jesus more than we are seeing people tell about Jesus. I will believe in anything if you tell me it will make me rich and guarantee me and my family all the luxuries of life. Who doesn’t want the best for their Families? When you sell this dream about Jesus to people, is it a wonder why those who do preach this way have millions of followers and believers going after them? Paul did no such thing. He did not sell Jesus to the people. He showed them, in this life you will have trouble. 

He glorified the scripture Jesus spoke in John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” In the end, you will accomplish what I have set you out to do, because I have overcome all the obstacles of this world. Our guarantee from Jesus is to overcome. That we will fulfill our purpose in-spite of the troubles and tribulation of this world. The trials and tribulations of this world will not stop the work God has called for us to do. Anyone who proclaims to you that Jesus died so you could have an abundance of riches, is a wolf posing as a shepherd!

If you are being pressed beyond what you believe you can handle, then know these things are normal when you love the Lord. There are seasons for everything. This season you are being pressed. You may smile at your neighbors, laugh with your co-workers, and cry when you’re at home by yourself. I don’t know how God gets us through it. I won’t have you ignorant, as Paul has stated. I look back at moments of my life and don’t know how I moved forward. At some point God will bring you through. 

But more important than getting through it, get what God has designed for you to get out of it. Don’t allow it to be a fruitless endeavor. Just a circumstance of suffering, but neve receiving the blessing God intended while in the midst of the suffering. Endure means to suffer patiently until the end. That means 1. There is an end to the suffering; and 2. You will not perish.

The thing that perished did not endure. It was destroyed. The thing that endures, remains after all the calamity. That is us. That is you. You will not perish. Jesus guarantees it. If you don’t believe me when I say it, then believe Jesus when he says it.

I don’t know what circumstance you are in, that has left you in despair. That has left you running. That has left you in tears. We despaired even of life is what the Apostle Paul said. I pray for those who are finding it hard to get up and out of bed in the morning this day. Because the last day looked like the last day before that. They don’t know what to do. They’ve tried everything. They’ve read their Bible. They’ve prayed. They’ve fasted too maybe. They cried out to God in prayer. They’ve sought out his face. They’ve pleaded their case at his feet. It feels like the Lord is not watching. Not listening. You are in the same spot that John The Baptist found himself in while imprisoned. Are you the one?

I’m suffering here Lord, are you the one? Jesus was out healing the sick, raising the dead, while John sat in a cold prison cell. Are you the one?

I’m lonely. It’s dark. I’m frustrated because I can’t find you in this mess that I’m in. I can’t find you in the same mistakes I’m making over and over again. I keep ruining relationships and I don’t even know why. Are you the one to help me? Are you the one to solve all my problems, because I need help. Not in riddle, not in a parable, but in a real simplified way. I’m too tired and I’m too worn out by my life to figure out one of your clever parables or stories.

The beauty of this confession is that Jesus will respond to it. “A broken and contrite heart I will not despise”. His words, not mine. I pray this message finds you well, and reaches those whom God has called to receive it. As always, God Bless you Brothers and Sisters. I pray that God keeps your Families safe. God Bless and I love with all the joy and hope that is in Christ!