Tag: Bible verses about facing trials

Bible Verse of The Day – 1-1-24

James 1:2-4 (NKJV) 2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time lately pondering on the irony of trials.

They’re a funny thing, these unexpected events that happen to all of us, tossing our world into a tailspin.

They catch us by surprise and can sometimes hit us with life-changing effects. Sometimes they leave scars that take a lifetime to heal.

But here’s the thing that is so ironic about trials; as much as we despise them, they can teach us a lot if we allow them to.

Some of the most powerful lessons we learn are by way of the tough things that we go through.

We learn about ourselves. We learn new things that we never expected or wanted to learn. We learn about the faithfulness of God.

And in all those things, we learn lessons that we can use to teach and help others around us when they face similar situations and circumstances.

Not one of us welcomes trials with open arms. We despise them. We hope they don’t happen to us. And we may even try to run from them.

Jesus told us in John 16:33 that tribulations will come to each of us.

So, what will we do with them when they come?

That’s the key question we need to ask ourselves.

Will we run from them? Will we deny that they’re happening? Will we be miserable? Will we gather people around us to join us in our own pity party?

Or will we seek God and let Him show us how and what we can learn as we let Him walk us through them?

The way we embrace our trials will tell us a lot about our maturity as a believer and our faith in God, whom we proclaim to others that we trust.

When the rubber meets the road, do our actions prove that we trust Him? Or do they show us struggling with unbelief?

Don’t take that wrong. We all wrestle with unbelief at times. But hanging on to it and never letting God get us beyond it is another story.

So, let us ask ourselves today, will we let our trials dictate how we behave, or will we let God teach us valuable lessons as we walk through them, that we might use those lessons to help others, and to bring glory and honor to Him?

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

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Bible Verse of The Day – 12-24-23 – The Irony of Trials

Please click to watch the video now.Greetings in the name of Jesus! 

It’s the day before Christmas, and we have a new video for you today. 

Today’s video is called, The Irony of Trials. 

In this new video we teach about facing trials in a way that honors God and brings fruit, instead of fear, frustration, and depression. 

We hope you enjoy the video, and that God will use it to speak to you. 

Please click here to watch the video now. 

We love you all! 

Merry Christmas, in His name. 

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie 

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443  

401-439-3780 

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Bible Verse of The Day – 7-28-23

James 1:2-3 (NKJV) 2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

I don’t care much for surprises of the negative kind; the unexpected event or situation that upends my day and requires me to make adjustments to accommodate unwelcome trouble or trials.

It’s just part of how I am wired.

But as a child of God who is (increasingly) led by the Holy Spirit, I have come to understand, as you probably have too, that trials are part of life.

Believers are not exempt. We have no clause in our salvation that states our lives will be free from trouble.

In fact, sometimes being a Christian invites trials.

Standing up for our faith will sometimes draw unwanted attention that can cause difficulties we would rather not have.

Other times, difficulties arise that have nothing to do with our faith at all; they are just part of life in general.

Regardless of how they come, we must be able to learn to deal with them properly.

If we fail to learn this, we will constantly be miserable, never learning how to be content in any situation.

So, knowing all of this, and learning from God’s word over the years of my life, I have come to understand that I cannot simply ignore trials, try to brush them off or spend my days wallowing in misery as trials arise and play out.

Trials are actually good for us, despite what we might think.

As James states above, trials test our faith. And they produce patience if we let God lead us through them His way.

This does not mean that we will grow to love trials. That is not likely for anyone.

But it does mean that, as we mature, we will address trials differently, allowing God to guide us and teach us, instead of spending our days mired in self-pity and sharing our anguish with everyone who will lend us an ear.

Instead, God will teach us to hold our tongues, go to Him for guidance and walk through our trials one step at a time, as He shows us His way to handle whatever we are facing.

And as we look back at a trial that we have worked our way through, we will do so joyfully rather than with disdain, giving Him the glory and honor for His faithfulness.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

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Bible Verse of The Day – 11-1-22

James 1:2-4 (NKJV) 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Some people today reading this have taken a big hit. Some have lost their homes, some their jobs and others their family member or loved one.

You are probably feeling lost right now and wondering if it is even worth living any longer. What is there to look forward to?

The fear and loneliness are setting in and you are not sure what to do, say, or where to go from here. How do I even pick up the pieces and move on?

These kinds of hits call for God’s intervention. Prayer is needed, and time away from everything. And sometimes even time away from everyone, so that we can gain some understanding, comfort and guidance as to the changes that we face.

Don’t be ashamed if you don’t know what to do or how to handle such a hit. God knows, and He will guide us and carry us through it if we don’t blame Him for it. He will help us come out on the other side.

With pure joy, through faith and perseverance, we will not be lacking anything! Amen.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

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Bible Verse of The Day – 6-27-22

Hebrews 12:2 (NKJV) 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

There are many things humans have a hard time with.

Here are a few of them; waiting, discomfort, humiliation, trials.

Many of us get terribly impatient, hate being uncomfortable, are appalled when we are humiliated and despise trials or hard times.

Because of this, we can never see beyond our disdain for them and see the good that can come from many of these types of things in our lives.

This can be a terrible weakness that has major consequences in our lives. But we may never know or recognize those consequences because we don’t even know that they are, in fact, consequences at all.

We just never connect the dots, so to speak.

Let me explain.

Sometimes we have things happen to us that are the result of choices that we have made. Maybe those choices were made in an effort to avoid something uncomfortable.

But, because we have avoided something uncomfortable, we may miss out on a blessing or a reward that God had for us.

And we never know that we missed out on it as a consequence of not wanting to do the uncomfortable, unpopular or difficult thing.

Look at what Jesus did, referenced in the verse above.

First, He looked beyond what was immediately in front of Him in order to see the joy (reward) that was in the distance; pleasing His Father, taking the place of honor at the Father’s right hand.

Second, He endured the cross; the most brutal, agonizing method of capital punishment that Rome had come up with to execute human beings.

Third, He despised (disregarded, pushed aside, ignored) the shame that came with being crucified. This was due to the stigma that was attached to crucifixion. Jews considered it a curse.

Jesus did all of this because He allowed Himself to see beyond the discomfort and inconvenience of the short term in order to reach His goal and consider the long term.

Oh, what we can learn from Him!

Let us also do the same, looking beyond the short-term inconveniences of life, that we might see the blessings on the other side of them.

Maybe, just maybe we will become more resilient, less likely to complain or give up when we face tough situations, and more likely to walk in the blessings that come from pushing through instead of giving up when things get hard.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

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Bible Verse of The Day – 10-26-21

Jeremiah 29:11 (NKJV) 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Are we having to start over today?

Maybe we lost everything we had. Maybe we got let go on our job. Or maybe our spouse left us or they passed away.

It can make us feel empty, hopeless and scared. But, we have learned that God can bring good things out of the hardest of times.

Starting over doesn’t have to be scary when we have a God who knows us better then we could ever comprehend.

He’s the One that loves us and cares for us; a God that knows our future. And if we let Him, He will make sure it goes the way it needs to.

In the midst of loss we can sometimes forget how marvelous our Father is toward us all.

Wait on God’s directions.

The first thing we have to do is learn to listen and see with our hearts, as led by God’s spirit. Our fleshly desires will fight us. But if we stand firm against them, and wait on God, He will give us the desires of our heart.

Psalm 37:4 (NKJV) 4 Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.

The next step we have to take is to adjust our attitude and the way we think, knowing and trusting that God will lead us if we give Him the lead.

Many times, if things aren’t happening quickly enough, we will try to take back the lead.

God will let us have it back. But we are in danger of being on our own at that point.

He will always help us, no matter how far off the path we go, if we realize it and ask Him for His help. The best thing to do is stay the course.

The most important thing to do is guard our attitude about where we are, even if we are at the beginning stages and we haven’t yet seen any changes.

Stay strong. God will come through.

The desires of our heart will come again; just maybe in a different way than we had thought, as we surrender ourselves to Him.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808

401-315-0902

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Bible Verse of The Day – 7-5-21

2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (NKJV) 8 For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. 9 Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead,

Paul went through some things in his lifetime. As an apostle, he was beaten many times, stoned and left for dead, survived shipwrecks and much more. And he suffered all of this as a result of his work to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others.

Because Paul knew what it meant to suffer, I tend to pay attention when he says something like what he said above; “we despaired even of life”.

They expected to die as a result of the persecution that they faced in Asia.

Paul calls the intensity in which they were persecuted as being “burdened beyond measure, above strength”. He was so sure he would die for the gospel that he had literally pronounced a death sentence upon himself.

It was that very situation, though, that caused them to stop relying on themselves and to turn fully to the God who raises the dead for their help and their survival.

Isn’t this just like all of us? We get backed into a corner and try with everything in us to fix the problem ourselves. Then, only when we realize that we can’t fix it, we finally hand it over to God for His help.

We know about this too. We have been in situations where we exhausted ourselves and were laying with our backs to the floor. Then we finally gave our situation over to God for His help. Once we did that, we started seeing light at the end of the proverbial tunnel pretty quickly.

Let’s change this up in our lives. Let’s start going to God first, instead of waiting until we are in dire need and on the verge of dying.

If we would do this, most of the struggles we face will be resolved much more quickly, and we will learn to trust God even more as we see Him work on our behalf.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808

401-315-0902

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Bible Verse of The Day – 6-21-21

Romans 8:18 (NKJV) 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

This verse brings us a message of great hope!

Not a single one of us likes suffering. It’s hard, it’s disheartening and it can be miserable at times.

Sometimes suffering can make us want to throw in the towel, give up and never try again.

Yes, it can be that bad.

But in the verse above, we are told that the suffering we encounter and endure here on earth can’t even begin to compare to the glory that will be revealed in us!

What does that mean?

It means that when we are bodily resurrected and we join Christ in heaven for eternity, our earthy suffering will pale greatly in comparison to the glory that will be revealed in us at that time.

In other words, the things that we suffer here will look like nothing when we compare it to being in God’s presence with Christ in the hereafter.

So, take heart!

Yes, suffering is hard. But it is only momentary. And the pain we endure while suffering here will fade away immediately when we are in His presence.

2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (NKJV) 17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808

401-315-0902

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

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Bible Verse of The Day – 5-31-21

Acts 14:21-22 (NLT) 21 After preaching the Good News in Derbe and making many disciples, Paul and Barnabas returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia, 22 where they strengthened the believers. They encouraged them to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.

As I have been making my way through the book of Acts again recently, I have found more and more very deep, “meaty” topics than I remembered were there since the last time I read through it.

The verses above are just a sample of this.

In today’s world, everyone wants comfort and an easy life. Convenience and ease of living are in high demand.

In fact, there are even some who would teach that God offers us all of this (wealth, comfort, happiness, etc.) if we would just “give Jesus a try”. Follow Him and He will make your life fantastic!

Sadly, many people (yes, even some genuine believers) fall for this fallacy, believing that God is the path to easy wealth, creature comforts and unending happiness.

What’s even more sad is that many are led away from God by this, instead of toward Him.

You see, God’s word says that trials and tribulations will come for all of us. It’s a fact of life. It’s reality.

Jesus Himself told us this.

John 16:33 (NKJV) 33 These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

In fact, James says that we should count it all joy when they come.

James 1:2-3 (NKJV) 2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

And Jesus, after telling us that there would be tribulations, tells us to be cheerful because He has overcome the world in which we live, where those tribulations will come upon us.

So, let’s not make the mistake of seeking and pursuing lives where there are no trials or tribulations.

No, none of us likes trials or tribulations. They hurt. They’re uncomfortable. They’re inconvenient.

But it is by way of those trials and tribulations that we are cleansed, pruned and purified in the fire, allowing us to enter into the kingdom of God.

Thank you, Father, for all that you do, even when it hurts.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808

401-315-0902

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Bible Verse of The Day – 1-30-21

Daniel 3:19-20 (NKJV) 19 Then Nebuchadnezzar was full of fury, and the expression on his face changed toward Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. He spoke and commanded that they heat the furnace seven times more than it was usually heated. 20 And he commanded certain mighty men of valor who were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, and cast them into the burning fiery furnace.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego had angered Nebuchadnezzar by refusing to worship the gold statue he had created.

They showed their loyalty to the one true God by stating very boldly to the king that “we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up”.

Needless to say, Nebuchadnezzar was irate. At this point he commanded that the furnace be heated up to 7 times hotter than normal.

The fire was so hot that it killed the men who threw them into the fire.

A short time after they had been thrown in, the king couldn’t believe what he saw.

In verse 24, He exclaimed, “Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?”.

The people confirmed this.

And then he proclaimed (in verse 25) that he could see “four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.”

King Nebuchadnezzar immediately called the three men out from the fire and was in awe that none of them were hurt.

None of them even had so much as the smell of fire on them or their garments.

Because of what he had witnessed, Nebuchadnezzar glorified God and immediately made a proclamation that no one would be allowed to speak anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego without punishment by death.

So often in our own lives, we pray and ask God to deliver us from the things that we are facing. We don’t want to go through pain or discomfort.

But if we look at the example above, we will see that these men of God actually had to go through the fire before they were delivered!

They didn’t see a hand sweeping down and removing the trial in front of them. Instead, they were allowed by God to be thrown into an incredibly hot furnace where He then showed His hand and prevented them from being hurt or burned alive.

By this God was glorified.

Had Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego not been thrown into the furnace, the king would never have glorified God. Neither would the men of God have been able to witness God’s miraculous hand of rescue from such a dire situation.

None of us likes the fire of trials. In fact, we probably despise them and will go to great lengths to avoid them or prevent them.

But it’s safe to say that it is only during times of great trial that we can see great moves of God on our behalf.

James 1:2-3 (NKJV) 2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808

401-315-0902

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

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Bible Verse of The Day – 1-2-21

1 Corinthians 1:9 (NKJV) 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

I think these are the words I use most whenever I hear of troublesome times for people.

I remember when my Dad was going in for heart surgery. I felt so weak at the knees that day that I could have literally just dropped.

But Someone held me and carried me through. That Someone was God.

When we are in our weakest moments, and we feel like we are just going to drop right to the ground, God’s arms are right there, waiting to carry us and bring us through whatever battle we are facing.

Yes…it’s OK to admit we are weak at times.

I remember crying out to God. All I could say was His name. Those are the moments when we know that God has our back.

Let me say to those who are weak today, “You’re tired from the battle and your strength may be all used up. Call on the One who can carry you the rest of the way”.

Psalm 57:2 (NKJV) 2 I will cry out to God Most High, To God who performs all things for me.

He is faithful!

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808

401-315-0902

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

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