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God Tests You
Mar Mari Emmanuel
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0:00 12:44
Mar Mari Emmanuel

God Tests You

Mar Mari Emmanuel teaches that God tests believers through the narrow gate to cultivate trust, surrender, and true intimacy with Him, even amid suffering and loneliness.
In this devotional sermon, Mar Mari Emmanuel explores the spiritual journey of walking through God's narrow gate, emphasizing the importance of trust and surrender amid trials. He candidly shares how God uses suffering to break our stubbornness and lead us into deeper intimacy with Him. Drawing from biblical examples, he encourages believers to embrace loneliness and rejection as part of their path to spiritual growth and salvation.

Full Transcript

Why the Lord calls us through the narador? Why, Lord, you choose a way for me to suffer? You are God. You created me on the basis of love. Why don't you give me a luxurious life? Why don't you give me a peaceful life, an easygoing life? Why the narador? For your sake, you are being God.

Since you're God, for your sake, God, why the narador? He says, my child, I want you to learn one of the greatest lessons of life. There are so many great lessons, one of the greatest. You need to learn.

Life is a school. We come here to learn, my beloved, about the creator. That was the very purpose.

We need to get to know him. Why he made me, why he brought me to existence. We need to learn, my beloved, one of the greatest lessons we need to learn is called trust.

When it comes to trust, stop asking questions all the time. Just accept it and go with it. Because the more questions you ask, the more disoriented you become.

You will never be able to make a decision. You will never be able to have peace in your life. For as long as you're using your head, there is no peace.

Give it away. Let Christ take over. Trust in him.

Even if you understand absolutely nothing, trust him. So when he says, I want you to walk through hell, stop saying why. Explain.

Tell me, please. I don't know. Shall I? Shall I not? Shall I do it? Shall I buy a house? Shall I apply for the job? Shall I marry Rachel or Elizabeth? Get a life.

Marry someone. Make a decision. Saint James, the apostle of Christ, in his epistle says, a person that is undecisive only burns himself.

Why are we so undecisive? Because I have lack of trust in the saving power of Christ. Trust him. Now trust doesn't mean you have to understand in order to trust.

That is not trust. You're doing it your way, not God's. God will not accept.

He'll keep on breaking you until you surrender. He will keep on breaking you. I'm telling you, I've been there.

I've done it. Believe me. Listen to this piece of wreck.

He will continue breaking you until you wave the white flag. He will never let go of you because he has to make sure you are saved and in his kingdom because he's purchased you with his precious blood for the sake of his holy name. He will not let go of you even if you do.

He made a promise to his dad. Dad, I'm going to earth. Okay, son, because that's what I want, son.

He said, yes, I'll do your will. But dad, I'll promise you this, daddy. The people you give me, the bride that I received from earth, I'm telling you, dad, I'm not going to come back home alone.

I'll bring the bride with me. I'll make sure those whom you gave me, none of them will disappear. So he will use every way possible to break you in order to make you want to have it easy.

Surrender. You keep being stubborn. He keeps on breaking you until you let go of your head.

Let go. Trust. You need to trust in the Lord.

Now, why the Noradour, Lord? Again, you're asking me a question. Yes, Lord, I'm thick-headed. I'm stubborn.

Assyrian, what do you expect? Middle Eastern. My blood boils quickly. I'll tell you why, son.

Imagine this with me. If I invited you through the wider gate, you're expecting freedom, you're expecting comfort, and the wider gate is all of that. But listen, my child, I wouldn't have true love for you if I invited you through the wider gate.

You know why, my child? Because the wider gate fits you and fits your entire tribe. The entire Assyrian tribe. So you will bring with you your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, your cousins, your nieces, your nephews, your friends, your work colleagues.

You'll bring the dogs, the animals, everything. Because it fits you all. And guess what? It will bring with you also you'll be able to bring all the luggages of the past, all the happy burdens, all the dark spots in the past I'm carrying with me.

And human nature is a fallen human nature. When we look back, we will always focus first on the negative things. We never focus on the good things.

This is human nature. It's fallen. It's corrupt.

When the hard drives is struck with a bug, what is it going to do? It's not going to give you colorful pictures. It's going to give you some weird, ugly things all over the place. So when we focus on the past, we focus on the negative aspects.

We are carrying the heavy luggages of the past, all the shortfalls and all the sins and all the problems we had. And I'm carrying the luggages with me. I'm not letting go of it because that's the human nature that is corrupt.

Can't know any better, can't do any better. So I come with the luggages. It's a wide gate.

It fits me and the luggages fits all the people that are loved by me. And when you're surrounded by your loved people, when they are talking to you and you're talking to them, you are so preoccupied with them. God is yelling, screaming, saying, child, please, I need you and I need your attention.

Give me your ear. Come back. I miss you, my daughter.

I miss you, my son. I want to share a moment with you. I want you to come and sit at my feet.

I want to have an intimate moment with the love of my life, the one whom I purchased with my own precious blood. And I'm too busy for God because I am so preoccupied with everyone under the sun except God. This is the wider door.

When you are on the phone and I try to reach you and I call you, it comes up busy. I can't talk to you because the line is engaged. The Lord is calling you.

The line is engaged. You're talking to your friend. You're talking to your cousin.

You're talking to your whatever. You're talking to everyone. God is trying to reach you.

It's engaged. You're too busy for him. What is he going to do? He's going to cut you and cut the line.

He will disconnect Telstra and Optus and even the chips that are done by Elon Musk. Yes, they can put all the chips. They can't disconnect me from Christ.

You little kids, wake up and grow up. You can't disconnect me from Christ. Who do you think you are? You little kiddos.

Unbelievable, man. I'm going to teach him a lesson. The Lord will make sure the line is not connected.

It is not busy. It is available because the Lord wants to call you. Now, you haven't been listening to him.

You still keep on walking through the wider gate. Birthday parties, going out, ladies' nights, boys and girls, start city casino. I'm too busy.

This is the wider gate. So what is the Lord going to do? Something will go wrong in your life and it will bring you to a full halt. What happened? A tragedy.

Something went wrong. I hit on the brake. I pulled back.

All of a sudden, from so busy life, I'm alone. My friends are gone. My family now is my enemy.

They don't want to talk to me. I'm alone. Now, the Lord says, now you can come through the narrow gate.

When I come through the narrow gate, it's painful. Alone is scary. It's being vulnerable.

It's weak, fragile. I'm lonely. I don't know who I am and what I am and where I am.

I'm so disorientated. I don't know what's going on. God, where are you? What a whisper.

Walk through the narrow door. Trust me. Stop using your thick head.

Just trust me. When I walk through the narrow door, it only fits me. I have no choice but to let go of the luggages.

I have to drop them. Isn't the narrow door the best? Awesome. The wider door was happiness, but I was heavy burdened.

Even though I was surrounded by thousands of people, but I was empty from within. I was lost from within. So many Hollywood celebrities, they have the whole world at the tip of their finger, but they are so empty, they kill themselves because they don't know what to do to fill this emptiness.

They have no idea the emptiness inside only God can fill. Not Illuminati, not Freemason, not money, not fame, not power, not prestigious life. God, Elohim, who created the heavens and the earth in the very beginning, is the only one that can fill that inside of you that is empty always.

I traveled the world. I came back home and I'm still miserable. I did everything under the sun.

When I came back home, I was so alone. I went with my friends and we had fun all night long till the next day, six, seven o'clock in the morning. But when I came back home, I was the worst ever in my life.

I looked at myself and I hated it. Why? Because it's empty from inside. God, Christ is the one who can fill it.

Walk through the You need to drop your luggages, your worries, your problems, your issues. You must, can't fit. Lord, I'm walking alone.

Yes, but now with God. I'm not alone. What did the Lord Jesus say? He said, all of you will leave me and run away.

You'll leave me alone, but I'm not alone, for my father is with me. For I walk through the Noradour for his sake. I, for say, I left everyone behind because I don't want to lose my daddy.

Because at the end, he is the truth. I need to go back to him because I belong to him from the very beginning that has no beginning. I need to go back to him.

So all of you will go and leave me and you have to, because the Noradour only fits me. Can't fit you Simon, Andrew, Philip. And if you're going to follow the good shepherd and his footprints, then Simon, you have to walk alone.

And Andrew, you have to walk alone. And Philip, you have to walk alone like Jesus. If you want to find your heavenly father, you must come alone.

Must come alone. Must come alone. I walked through the pain and I found myself in a desert where there is no sense of direction.

And I'm so weak. And in the midst of my weakness and of the heart of my disorientation, I met Jesus. Wow.

Oh man, I could go on and on. You know, in the gospel of John, or according to St. John, chapter 9. In the gospel of, uh, according to St. John, chapter 9, the Lord Jesus gives eyes to the one who was born blind by spitting on the ground, making mud and putting it on his eyes. And it says, go and wash in that pond.

Shiloha, or Shiloha, which is messenger, means messenger. It's a Hebrew Syriac Aramaic word, which means messenger. That pond is Christ, refers to the Lord Jesus.

Anyway, so he went and washed. He started seeing, he regained his eyesight. The moment he regained his eyesight, what happened? His own family rejected him and his own community cast him out, kicked him out.

As long as he was blind, he was living in the midst of everyone. And he had the normal life. The moment his eyesight was opened by God.

Now, when he was living in the midst of the community, he was reading the book. It is sweet to the mouth. He was reading the book.

But the moment he regained his eyesight, meaning God opens my eyes, no one else. So when God opened my eyes, all the people who were around me, now they hate me and they threw him out. When they threw him out, who found him? The Lord.

He didn't find the Lord. The Lord found him. Why? Because now he walked through the narador.

Now he walked alone. His parents, they said, is out of his mind. The Pharisees and the scribes, they told him off and they kicked him out.

They said, we don't want you. The moment he was alone, God found him and he met God. Who do you want to see? People or God? Who do you want to be with? People or God? Do you want to know if Jesus truly exists? Accept the bitterness.

Sermon Outline

  1. I. The Purpose of Life and Trust
    • Life is a school to learn about God
    • Trust is a fundamental lesson from God
    • Stop over-questioning and surrender to God's will
  2. II. The Narrow Gate Versus the Wide Gate
    • The wide gate represents comfort but carries burdens
    • The narrow gate requires loneliness and surrender
    • God uses trials to break stubbornness and build trust
  3. III. The Cost and Reward of Walking the Narrow Gate
    • Walking alone leads to rejection by others
    • True intimacy with God is found in the narrow path
    • God never abandons those who trust Him
  4. IV. Biblical Example of the Man Born Blind
    • Jesus opens the eyes of the blind man
    • The man is rejected after gaining spiritual sight
    • God finds and embraces those who walk alone

Key Quotes

“God will keep on breaking you until you wave the white flag.” — Mar Mari Emmanuel
“The wider gate fits you and your entire tribe, but it brings all your burdens with it.” — Mar Mari Emmanuel
“When God opened my eyes, all the people who were around me now hate me and they threw me out.” — Mar Mari Emmanuel

Application Points

  • Practice trusting God daily, even when you do not understand your circumstances.
  • Be willing to let go of past burdens and worldly comforts to walk through the narrow gate.
  • Embrace moments of loneliness as opportunities to deepen your relationship with God.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does God allow suffering in our lives?
God allows suffering to teach us trust and to break our stubbornness so we can fully surrender to Him.
What is the significance of the narrow gate?
The narrow gate symbolizes the difficult path of faith that requires letting go of worldly burdens and trusting God alone.
How can I trust God when I don’t understand my circumstances?
Trusting God means surrendering even without understanding, believing that He is working for your ultimate good.
What does it mean to walk alone with God?
Walking alone means prioritizing your relationship with God above all others, even if it leads to loneliness or rejection.
How does the story of the man born blind relate to us?
It illustrates that gaining spiritual sight through Christ may lead to rejection by others but results in a deeper relationship with God.

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