mr owen

[All our troubles and distress are God's means to make us more and more like his Son. (For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Rom 8:29) They help us to have a deeper sense of the vileness of sin as God see's it. Troubles are used by God to discipline and correct his children, as such, they are not to be despised (Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. Heb 12:3-11). Troubles help us to rely less and less on created things for our comfort and to rejoice more in the things of Christ (But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Gal.6:14.) Troubles help us to kill our lusts or corrupt desires. We are delivered more and more from the pollutions of sin and are made more and more holy, as he is holy (So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 2 Cor 4:16). Troubles are God's ways of drawing out from us all the graces of the Spirit in order that they may be constantly and diligently exercised.] John Owen