Daily Devotional

Have you ever heard the “christian” phrase tossed out that “God will not give you more than you can handle?” I think it is actually a very common belief and yet it is not correct. Like all lies from the Devil who seeks to twist the Word of God, it is very close to a truth that is promised in the Bible but it does not mean the same thing. Most agree that this comes from a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of 1 Corinthians 10:13 where Paul says that no temptation has overtaken you but which is common to man and that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able, and will provide a way of escape.

Do you see it? Do you see the slight but important difference? In 1 Corinthians we are promised that we can overcome any temptation because we will not be tempted beyond what we are able. It does not say God will not give us trials, tribulations, situations, etc that are beyond our ability to handle. In fact I think there are a good many christian martyrs who would disagree that God doesn’t give people more than they can handle. In the passage above Paul speaks how they experienced so much beyond their own strength that they would have rather died, but it was so they would not trust in themselves but rather rely on God and His power to see them through. You see it was more than they could handle, but not more than God could handle.

So why is this distinction so important? Well I think there are a few reasons; first belief in the original phrase makes us soft and ill prepared christians. Jesus warns us that in this life we will have trouble, the world will hate us for His namesake, and we can and should expect to be persecuted for Jesus. So if we have an attitude that God won’t really let anything too bad happen to us, we will not be prepared to stand for Jesus when it does happen. We will be unprepared. Second, it could shake our faith when we feel like a promise we thought was in God’s Word is not born out to be true. Satan loves to whisper half truths to us and then when they don’t come true, point to God and say see He doesn’t really love you, or He isn’t really there. And we will question our faith in the one true God, not because God’s Word wasn’t true, but because we believed in an incorrect truth.

In this life we will have trouble, we will have pain, we will be persecuted, not for ourselves but for His name and for His glory. God will use it to proclaim His name, His gospel, and to cause us to rely on His strength and His power, not our own. God may absolutely give us more than we can handle, so we will run to Him and not rely on ourselves. So prepare yourselves for the tough times that are coming, so that you may be able to stand firm in your faith even to the end, even to death. Glory to God who upholds us with His righteous right hand.

New King James Version (NKJV)
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.