Is That Right?

Is That Right?

1 Cor 10:13

I have bad news for some of you, today. I am going to de-bunk one of your truisms.

A truism is a saying that is universally believed to be self-evident or obviously true.

“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do”

“What goes up must come down”

My favorite

A truism is not scripture, but because some truisms go along with the bible so well, they are placed on the same level as scripture, and sometimes people even believe they are scripture

EX: Money is the root of all evil

Cleanliness is next to godliness

This week I got sick. Tuesday, during my prayers I was thinking about the many things I need to do and things about which I am worried and I prayed, “Well, God, I know you do not put more on us than we can handle.”

Most of you have heard other people say that or you have said it yourself… Right???

Well, immediately, like someone was in the room, I heard, “Is that right? Who told you that?

That is not true.”

At first I thought it was Satan trying to get me to doubt. But as God began to lay out the truth for me, I realized it was from God. So today I am going to share it with you.

“God does not put more on us that we can handle”

Where does that come from? Is it biblical?

It is NOT a bible verse. But is it biblical… does it line up with what the bible teaches?

Well, it does correspond to one bible truth… human frailty.

There is a tipping point for all humans… a point at which things become more than we can handle alone

It is like having a popsicle stick balanced on a pencil and you put a penny on one end to represent you and your resources to handle things.

If there is nothing on the other end… you can handle it

If there is one penny… you are balanced

But if there are two pennies… you tip… more than you can handle

You lose hope or fall into despair

So… yes there is a point at which you cannot handle things

One place the truism is NOT BIBLICAL is at the point of “God will not put more on us…”

This assumes that God is the only one who puts things on us

Troubles, hard times, struggles, challenges

The truth is God does put things on us… to help us, to grow us, to stretch us, to show us our need for Him

BUT… God is NOT the only one putting stuff on us.

SATAN puts stuff on us to crush our faith

our testimony

WE put stuff on ourselves by our poor decisions

Laziness, procrastination, short-cuts, half-done

Comes home to roost

In fact, WE PUT MOST of the stuff on us

OTHER PEOPLE put stuff on us

Laziness, procrastination, short-cuts, half-done

So… even if it were true that, “God will not put more on us than we can handle”… us, other people and Satan WILL put more on us than we can handle

You may ask… What about God? Won’t He help me? Can’t He handle these things?

YES… HE CAN!!! There is NO DOUBT!!

And… SOMETIMES… He does…

We get piled on by life

We cry out to God to deliver us

He comes along side and adds his weight

and we call it a miracle…

Stormy sea… calmed

Blind… healed

But He does not always do miracles

EX: Smoker for 25 years gets lung cancer, God does not heal

So, when we talk about how much we can have to bear we are really talking about the will of God

And when we talk about the will of God we have to divide it into the PERFECT will of God and the PERMISSIVE will of God

Most of the stuff with which we have to deal… is our doing, our free-will and falls under His PERMISSIVE will

It is like this…

God, by His PERFECT will… puts this much on us

God, by His PERMISSIVE will… allows us to put this much on us

So… even if it were true that God will not put more on us (PERFECT WILL) than we can bear…

That does not mean that WE/Satan/life/others will not put more on us that we can bear

OK, so let’s go back to the earlier question: Where does this truism come from?

It is a misapplication of 1 Cor. 10:13 13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.