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    The In Touch Study Series: Advancing Through Adversity
    The In Touch Study Series: Advancing Through Adversity
    The In Touch Study Series: Advancing Through Adversity
    Ebook124 pages4 hours

    The In Touch Study Series: Advancing Through Adversity

    By Charles F. Stanley

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    About this ebook

    Dr. Charles Stanley's new series of Bible study guides feature insights and wisdom of this beloved pastor and author. Small groups and individuals who want a Bible study that's spiritually sound and practical will find a wealth of ideas to help them understand and apply the Scriptures to the real world. Each title takes a unique fourfold approach to get the most out of Bible study time - emphasizing personal identification with the Scripture passage, recognition of your emotional response, reflection of the passage's meaning and application, and taking steps to apply what's been learned. This is a sound way to explore the Word of God.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThomas Nelson
    Release dateAug 23, 1996
    ISBN9781418571863
    The In Touch Study Series: Advancing Through Adversity
    Author

    Charles F. Stanley

    Dr. Charles F. Stanley was the founder of In Touch Ministries and pastor emeritus of First Baptist Church Atlanta, Georgia, where he served more than fifty years. He was also a New York Times bestselling author of more than seventy books. Until his death in 2023, Dr. Stanley’s mission was to get the gospel to “as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, as clearly as possible, as irresistibly as possible, through the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God.” This is a calling that In Touch Ministries continues to pursue by transmitting his teachings as widely and effectively as possible. Dr. Stanley’s messages can be heard daily on In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley broadcasts on television, radio, and satellite networks and stations around the world; on the internet at intouch.org and through In Touch+; and via the In Touch Messenger Lab. Excerpts from Dr. Stanley’s inspiring messages are also published in the award-winning In Touch devotional magazine.

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      Anything by Stanley on Adversity will encourage your outlook for the rest of your life!

    Book preview

    The In Touch Study Series - Charles F. Stanley

    9781418533335_INT_0001_001

    ADVANCING THROUGH

    ADVERSITY

    1

    BY

    CHARLES F. STANLEY

    9781418533335_INT_0001_003

    Advancing Through Adversity

    Copyright 1996, 2008 by Charles F. Stanley

    All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

    Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers, and distributed in Canada by Word Communications, Ltd., Richmond, British Columbia.

    9781418533335_INT_0002_001

    Editing, layout, and design by Gregory C. Benoit Publishing, Old Mystic, CT

    The Bible version used in this publication is THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION.

    Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.

    ISBN 1-4185-3333-5

    Printed in the United States of America

    08 09 10 11 12 RRD 5 4 3 2 1

    Contents

    INTRODUCTION

    Adopting a Perspective on Adversity

    LESSON 1

    God Has a Purpose for Everything

    LESSON 2

    The Questions that We Ask in Adversity

    LESSON 3

    Is Adversity Ever Caused by God?

    LESSON 4

    Three Reasons Why God Allows Adversity

    LESSON 5

    Four Corrections Compelled by Adversity

    LESSON 6

    What Adversity May Reveal to Us

    LESSON 7

    Lessons Paul Learned from Adversity

    LESSON 8

    Advancing through Adversity

    LESSON 9

    Courage in Times of Adversity

    LESSON 10

    Our Response to Adversity

    INTRODUCTION

    Adopting a Perspective on Adversity

    Bookstores are lined with self-help books. This book, however, is better labeled a Bible-help book.

    When adversity strikes our lives, we eventually reach the end of our ability to help ourselves. Our end point is often God’s beginning point. The help that God offers us in His Word—the Bible— is eternal, but it is also timely. My hope is that, as you engage in this study, you will find yourself referring to your Bible again and again—to mark specific words or underline phrases.

    The Bible is God’s foremost communication tool. It is the wellspring of eternal wisdom. It is the reference to which we must return continually to compare what is happening in our lives with what should be happening in us and what can happen to us.

    Make notes in the margins of your Bible as you engage in this study. It is far more important that you write God’s insights into your Bible, which you are reading regularly, than to write in this book—although places are provided for you to make notes here.

    This book can be used by you alone or by several people in a small-group study. At various times, you will be asked to relate to the material in one of these four ways:

    1. What new insights have you gained? Make notes about the insights that you have. You may want to record them in your Bible or in a separate journal. As you reflect back over your insights, you are likely to see how God has moved in your life.

    2. Have you ever had a similar experience? Each of us approaches the Bible from a unique background—our own particular set of relationships and experiences. Our experiences do not make the Bible true—the Word of God is truth regardless of our opinion about it. It is important, however, to share our experiences in order to see how God’s truth can be applied to human lives.

    3. How do you feel about the material presented? Emotional responses do not give validity to the Scriptures, nor should we trust our emotions as a gauge for our faith. In small-group Bible study, however, it is good for participants to express their emotions. The Holy Spirit often communicates with us through this unspoken language.

    4. In what way do you feel challenged to respond or to act? God’s Word may cause you to feel inspired or challenged to change something in your life. Take the challenge seriously and find ways of acting upon it. If God reveals to you a particular need that He wants you to address, take that as marching orders from God. God is expecting you to do something with the challenge that He has just given you.

    Start and conclude your Bible study sessions in prayer. Ask God to give you spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear. As you conclude your study, ask the Lord to seal what you have learned so that you will never forget it. Ask Him to help you grow into the fullness of the stature of Christ Jesus.

    Again, I caution you to keep the Bible at the center of your study. A genuine Bible study stays focused on God’s Word and promotes a growing faith and a closer walk with the Holy Spirit in each person who participates.

    LESSON 1

    God Has a Purpose for Everything

    2 In This Lesson 3

    LEARNING: WHY DOES ADVERSITY COME INTO MY LIFE?

    GROWING: WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO GET OUT OF IT?

    4

    Adversity has a positive side. I realize that isn’t a statement that you are likely to hear very often. Your first response may have been, Oh, really? You don’t know what I’m going through!

    Seeing the positive side of adversity is not wishful thinking, denial of reality, or pie-in-the-sky optimism. Rather, it is a statement of faith.

    The positive side of adversity is rooted in two strong beliefs:

    First, God has a plan and a purpose for the life of every person—including you. If you want God’s plan and purpose to be accomplished in your life, the Lord will go to whatever lengths are necessary to accomplish it. He will not go against your will, but if your will is to do His will, then the Lord will move heaven and earth to see that His will is done in your life. This means that God can use adversity to accomplish His plan, to further your purposes on the earth, or to work His purposes within your life.

    Second, God can turn things to good for you regardless of the situation that you are facing today. You may think that your life has derailed and crashed beyond any repair. But the Scriptures say, We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28).

    The Lord has a way of arranging things so that good comes from bad. That’s His very nature as Redeemer—to take what enslaves us and to use it to free us. When the Lord redeems a situation, He also sends a message to other people who observe what God is doing in our lives. That message may bring about many different reactions—from conviction to repentance to praise. What God does for good in our lives is never limited to us; it is always for others, too.

    Jesus taught this to His disciples by healing a blind man. The disciples asked Him, Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? (John 9:2) The disciples had been taught all their lives that illness was a sign of God’s judgment. They had no doubt that somebody had sinned to cause the condition of blindness.

    Jesus replied, Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him (John 9:3). There was purpose to the man’s adversity. The disciples saw his blindness as being caused by something bad. Jesus taught that the man’s blindness was for the cause of something good.

    Note that Jesus didn’t say, This man is blind because he sinned, but God is going to use it anyway. That would be a much easier statement for many of us to swallow. Rather, Jesus said that God had a purpose higher than anything that the disciples had considered. God intended to use the miracle to bring about something positive and eternal in the man’s life and in the lives of people who witnessed his healing.

    That puts an entirely new light on any type of adversity that we may experience. There is good reason to be concerned about what causes adversity—which we will deal with later on in this book—but our greater concern must always be with what results from adversity. Do we allow adversity to throw us back, defeat us, or pull us down? Or do we see adversity as something that can make us stronger, better, and more whole?

    Do we regard adversity as a destroyer, or do we see it as carrying the seeds that can

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