Objection: My Trials Only Come to Make Me Strong

Trials are designed by the devil to steal from you, kill you and destroy you, not strengthen you.  God’s role in your life is to give you life more abundantly (John 10:10).  The devil is the one who wants to ruin you.  Some Christians have times when they don’t know right from wrong, so they blame God for sending trials that the devil actually sends.  They think God explicitly sends trials (or at least “allows” them) to serve a higher purpose in their lives, so they “thank God for the valleys” and go “through it all” when they should be taking authority over sicknesses, pains and financial lack in the name of Jesus.

Jesus said that in this world we will have tribulation (John 16:33), but many people stop there instead of finishing the verse, where Jesus says He has overcome the world.  And you’ve overcome the world, too (1 John 5:4-5).  So regardless of the tribulation that comes, Jesus has given you the power to be an overcomer.  That’s doesn’t mean that life will always be easy, and it doesn’t mean that you will cruise through life unopposed by the devil and his children.  In fact, some trials are specific to Christians because people who aren’t in “the faith” are not persecuted for their faith!

There are trials that you cannot “believe away.”  If your trial involves other people, you have no authority over other people’s wills.  We are not redeemed from persecution; instead, we are promised that all those who want to live godly will suffer persecution (2 Timothy 3:12).  So if everyone thinks you’re wonderful, you should be very concerned about your level of boldness in the things of God!  However, we are redeemed from sickness, so if you’re dealing with sicknesses and pains, you need to make them stop in the name of Jesus rather than thanking God for them when He didn’t send them in the first place.

Do trials come to make you strong?  Satan is the author of your trials, and he has no desire to make you strong.  God does not “send” Satan to you to strengthen you.  God wants you to be strengthened with might by the Holy Spirit’s power (Ephesians 3:16, Colossians 1:11), not by the devil’s trials.

Satan successfully tempted Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus.  Did this trial come to make Judas strong?  Was the result a stronger Judas?  NO!  The result was a RUINED Judas who ended up taking his own life.

How often does someone die prematurely from some horrible disease?  Did the “trial” of that disease make the person “strong” and serve some higher purpose?  NO!  The trial only came to make the person WEAK and ultimately DEAD.  That is never God’s good plan, especially since one of His names is The Lord Who Heals You (Exodus 15:26).

Did God deliberately put certain apostles in jail because it would be good for them?  How good was it that most of them ended up martyred, at which point their ministries were over?  Whose agenda was that?  Jesus cleared up that matter for you in Revelation 2:10 – it was the DEVIL who was going to put some church members into prison.  In other words, the devil whipped up that trial.  We see no cases where God went around locking up His saints, but we do see cases where God supernaturally got His saints OUT of jail (Acts 5:18-20, Acts 12:3-10)!

Get out your Bible –you’ll never see a case where Jesus indicated that a sickness had come to strengthen its victim.  Read all the passages where Jesus healed them ALL.  If trials such as cancer, back pain and arthritis were good for those people and made them strong, why did Jesus take away their opportunity to be made stronger by the trial that God so lovingly “allowed?”  If God had any stake in any of those diseases, then instead of coming to DO the will of His Father, Jesus came to UNDO the will of His Father.

Because Jesus was willing to heal everyone, and He only did the will of His Father, it must be God’s desire for everyone to be healthy.  It would make no sense for God to want everyone to be healthy and then send or “allow” a sickness that robs someone of his health.

Learning to overcome trials will work patience, endurance and other positive character traits in you.  However, simply enduring them doesn’t do anything for you except make you miserable.  If you think that God is behind a trial so that you will be stronger, you won’t face the issue and you won’t use your faith to run it off.  Why would you want to fight God if He “allowed” the trial to strengthen you?  If that were the case, you would want to stay in the trial as long as possible to get as strong as possible!

If trials are such a great strengthening tool, why won’t there be trials in heaven?  Simple – the devil and his minions won’t be there to create trials.

If Satan’s trials were actually good for you, Satan would deserve a paycheck, not eternal punishment, for his actions that strengthen you.  You can be very sure that Satan does nothing to make you stronger.  What makes you stronger is not the Satan-sent trial but rather your overcoming of it by faith, which will make it easier the next time you face something similar.  While good comes out of it in that sense, Satan would stop all trials in an instant if the only impact of his trials were to strengthen Christians.  He has no one’s well-being in mind.  He seeks those whom he may devour, and he persists in his actions because he DOES end up devouring some people with the problems he sends.

Jesus gave you authority over ALL the power of the enemy so that nothing (including the devil’s sicknesses) should hurt you (Luke 10:17-20).  If your trial is a sickness, take authority over it in the name of Jesus!  The devil sent it, and Jesus came to DESTROY the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), not DEPLOY the works of the devil to make you strong!