We Boast in our Tribulations, Realising that Tribulation is the Incarnation of Grace

As we stand in grace and walk in peace, we have God as our boast and exultation, for we boast in God and we also boast in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation is actually the incarnation of grace with all the riches of Christ. Amen!

Thank the Lord for saving us and regenerating us to dispense His life into us and make us children of God!

Now we are believers in Christ, those who love the Lord and who learn to partake of the tree of life so that we may remain on the line of life.

We are daily being taught by the Lord in our Christian life to no longer live by the tree of knowledge of good and evil but rather, enjoy Christ as our life and life supply so that we may be on the line of life.

May the Lord save us from wasting our time by being on the line of death, the line of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

May we take the way of the tree of life and walk on this way day by day.

We get on this path through justification, for God justifies us out of faith in Christ, and we now walk on the pathway of life. Without justification, we cannot gain life. Without being justified by God, we cannot obtain the divine life of God.

But thank the Lord that we all have been justified through faith in Christ!

Now that we are justified, we go on with the Lord to enjoy His life, partake of His life, and live by His life, even to be saved in His life.

Justification is the basis, the foundation, and the gate for us to enter the pathway of life; through justification, we are brought into the full enjoyment of God in Christ as our life.

The result of justification is that we can have the full enjoyment of God in Christ as our life. May we not stop with justification but may we go on to be saved in God’s life through enjoying Christ in all things!

Now that we have been justified, we enjoy the love of God being poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us!

Hallelujah, from the day of our salvation, no matter what happens to us, no matter the happiness or sorrow, deep within us we have the sense that God loves us.

He keeps us in His love and we need to keep ourselves in God’s love. We simply need to keep ourselves in God’s love and always have the first love toward Him. Amen!

Besides the love of God, we also have grace; we are in the realm of grace, and now we stand in grace. And we walk in peace; peace is our way, for Christ is our peace.

We walk in peace with God and we have peace with all men, for we enjoy and experience Christ as our peace.

In the Realm of Grace we have God as our Boast for our Enjoyment and Rejoicing: we boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ

As we live our daily life in the realm of grace, standing in grace, we have God as our boast and exultation for our enjoyment and rejoicing.

We see this in Rom. 5:11, where Paul says that we are also boasting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the past, before we were saved, we boasted in ourselves, and eventually we became disappointed. Now that we have believed into Christ, being justified by Him, we stand in grace and we walk in peace, and our boasting is in God.

We do not boast in ourselves or what we can do. We do not boast in what we are or what we are able to do. We boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

When we boast in ourselves, we get disappointed, because all the glory of man is like the flowers and the grass on the field – it withers and fades. But as we stand in grace and enjoy God, we again and again can be in God, and we can boast in God because of the hope of the glory of God!

How can we boast in God? We boast in Him because of the hope of the glory of God. Our hope is in Him; He will glorify us, and when we boast in Him, we are uplifted.

We Christians do not need to be depressed; we may fail, we may make mistakes, and we may have many failures, but we can come to the Lord again and again to confess our sins and apply His precious blood.

We can go on with the Lord because He will glorify us; He arranges all things for us in such a way that all things work out for good for us (Rom. 8:28-29).

God knows that our natural being needs to be sanctified, transformed, and conformed. So He brings in certain tribulations and sufferings for our good.

We may not like tribulations and sufferings and we may not like them, but these work out something good in us.

God is the One who works behind the scenes to cause all things to work together for good so that we, the believers in Christ, may be conformed to the image of Christ, the firstborn Son of God.

If we have this view, we will realize that tribulation and suffering are for our transformation, and we will not complain about it, we will not argue with God to ask Him to remove them, and we will not fight against the tribulation and suffering.

Rather, we will open to the Lord, confess our sins and failures, and apply His precious blood, and we will simply allow the Lord to work Himself into us.

Through all the things taking place in our life, the Lord wants to work Himself into us to be our life and our everything, and He arranges all kinds of things, persons, and situations in our environment to help us be open to His operation.

Oh, may we learn to open to the Lord in all the things we go through so that He may work Himself into us! And may we allow the Lord to tear down our self-reliance and trust in the self so that we may boast in God!

As we fail again and again, as we go through tribulation and are in suffering, we realize that there’s nothing in us we can boast in; we can boast only in God.

Just like Paul, we may ask the Lord to remove the thorn in the flesh, but He may not; He may only increase the grace, for His grace is sufficient for us.

We stand in grace and our boasting is in God, not in anything of ourselves or anything that we can do.

Lord Jesus, we love You and we open to You! We stand in grace and we boast in God! Amen, Lord, our only boasting is in God, not in anything of ourselves. Thank You for doing all things in us and around us for our good, for us to be conformed to the image of Christ. We open to You, dear Lord Jesus, so that You may work out all things for Your purpose in our being. We come to You with our failures, trespasses, and sins, and we simply confess them under Your light; wash us and cleanse us with Your precious blood. We want to go on with You. We open our whole being to You so that You may work out in us what You want to do. Oh Lord, may we see that God causes all things to work together for good so that we may be conformed to the image of Christ, the firstborn Son of God! Hallelujah, our boasting is in God, who works out all things! Amen, Lord, we boast in God, for God does everything in us and through us. We love You, Lord, and we boast in You!

Tribulation is the Incarnation of grace with All the Riches of Christ – we Boast in our Tribulations

In Romans 5:3, Paul says that we boast in our tribulations; in verse 11, he says that we boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Humanly speaking, we do not like tribulation, nor do we welcome it. But practically speaking, we believers in Christ boast in our tribulations, for tribulation is actually the incarnation of grace with all the riches of Christ.

Just as we can know and enjoy God because He has been incarnated in Christ, and apart from Christ we cannot know God, so tribulation is the incarnation of grace.

Apparently, we have tribulation in our environment; actually, we have grace. Amazing!

Why is this? Because we know that tribulation produces endurance, endurance produces approvedness, and approvedness produces hope, and this hope does not put us to shame.

This is a picture of our Christian life; our Christian life is full of tribulation.

We may think that, now that we are believers in Christ, everything will be smooth and all the problems are gone. But what we discover is that tribulation intensifies in our Christian life, and we can boast in our tribulations, for tribulation is the embodiment, the incarnation of grace.

Tribulation is the sweet visitation of grace, for it is in our tribulation that the Lord can visit us and become experiential to us as grace.

Grace mainly visits us in the form of tribulation, by which God has a way to work Himself into us. No one likes tribulation, but we cannot avoid it.

Since the day we were attracted by the Lord to love Him and pursue Him, the Lord has allowed us to experience certain tribulations.

But we should not be afraid or discouraged, for even as we have tears due to our suffering in tribulation, the Lord as grace is our portion of enjoyment in tribulation.

To reject tribulation is to reject grace, which is God as our portion for our enjoyment.

Grace mainly visits us in the form of tribulation by which God causes all things – all persons, all situations, all circumstances, and all environments – to work together for good (Rom. 8:28-29)!

The good that God desires for us, the real good for us as believers in Christ, is that we may gain more of Christ to have Him wrought into our being so that we may be transformed metabolically and conformed to the image of Christ until we are brought into the full sonship! Hallelujah!

For such a glorious purpose, we experience tribulation and we boast in our tribulations.

In 2 Corinthians 12:7-9, we see that Paul boasted in his weakness in his tribulation, for through such weakness, the Lord’s grace was increased for him, even becoming sufficient for him.

Many believers dislike the cross and seek to avoid it because it is a suffering, a tribulation.

Madame Guyon, on the contrary, welcomed the cross and even kissed it, waiting for more to come, because she realised that the cross brought God to her. She realised that, when she had the cross, she had God. Oh Lord!

We may not be that bold to declare that we kiss the cross and welcome it, but we need to have the view that tribulation is the incarnation of God as grace, for through tribulation, God visits us to dispense more of Himself into us.

Therefore, we boast in our tribulations, not in our victories; we boast in our weakness, not in our strength or strong points.

Grace always comes in the form of tribulation for the purpose that all things, matters, situations, and circumstances would work together for good, that is, so that we may gain God!

This is very applicable to our Christian life, for in so many things and in so many ways we encounter tribulation, as assigned to us by God, and we can open to the Lord so that we may enjoy Him as grace.

We may not like that someone would be late to the appointment, but they may always be late; this is something small, but it causes us suffering, being a tribulation to us.

Even in such a small thing, something inward that we suffer, we can open to the Lord and allow Him to work Himself into ur being, even to gain us more and conform us to the image of Christ.

May we remain on this process of life in which God arranges all things, all persons, and all situations around us for our good, for us to be conformed to the image of Christ!

He knows what boss we need, what husband or wife we need, and what kind of church life He wants us to be in. He knows what elders to put in the church life, what people to put around us, and what kind of employer we should have.

He knows all our needs, and He arranges all things to work together for good for us for our being conformed to the image of Christ.

May we boast in our tribulations and boast in God, for He does all things and we simply open to Him!

Lord Jesus, cause us to see that tribulation is actually the incarnation of grace, even the sweet visitation of grace. May we not reject tribulation but rather, may we open to You to enjoy God as our portion for our enjoyment. Amen, Lord, increase the level of grace even as we pass through tribulation. We just open to You. We love You. We give ourselves to You. We don’t want to do anything apart from You. We want to remain in the organic union with You even as we pass through tribulation. We trust in You, Lord, and we boast in our tribulation for we know that tribulation produces endurance, and endurance, approvedness, and approvedness, hope! Hallelujah, Christ is in us as the hope of glory, and God causes all things to work together for good, for us to gain more of God! Amen, Lord, may we gain more of Christ and have Him wrought into our being so that we may be transformed metabolically and conformed to the image of Christ! Hallelujah!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Romans, msg. 9, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Chapters 5 through 8 of Romans – the Kernel of the Bible (2025 ICSC), week 2, The Result of Our Justification— the Full Enjoyment of God in Christ as Our Life.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – By the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in the believers’ spirit, a portion from, Living In and With the Divine Trinity, Chapter 9, by Witness Lee.
  – “I live in faith” – Living the Christian Life in the Sphere and Element of Faith, article in, Affirmation and Critique.
  – What should our attitude be when we face all these things? A portion from, New Believers Series: Discipline of the Holy Spirit, The #20, Chapter 1, by Watchman Nee.
  – Forgiveness and the Building Up of the Body of Christ, via, Shepherding Words.
  – Realising the sufficient grace of the Lord, a portion from, Enjoying the Riches of Christ for the Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ, Chapter 10, by Witness Lee.
  – Philippians (Program #7) – The Best Choice of Paul, via, Bible study radio.
  – An Aimless Young Man, a testimony via, The Church in Dallas.
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  – Seek the Riches of Christ, via, New Jerusalem blog.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater, / He sendeth more strength when the labors increase, / To added affliction He addeth His mercy, / To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace. / When we have exhausted our store of endurance, / When our strength has failed ere the day is half-done, / When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, / Our Father’s full giving is only begun. (Hymns #723 stanzas 1-2)
  – Help me then, in every tribulation, / So to trust Thy promises, O Lord, / That I lose not faith’s sweet consolation, / Offered me within Thy holy Word. / Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting, / E’er to take, as from a father’s hand, / One by one, the days, the moments fleeting, / Till with Christ the Lord I stand. (Hymns #713 stanza 3)
  – It is this grace—Christ as our inward strength— / Which with His all-sufficiency doth fill; / It is this grace which in our spirit is, / There energizing, working out God’s will. / This grace, which is the living Christ Himself, / Is what we need and must experience; / Lord, may we know this grace and by it live, / Thyself increasingly as grace to sense. (Hymns #497 stanzas 4-5)