Do you know the only difference between a piece of black coal and a priceless diamond is the amount of pressure it has endured?

The way you handle adversities will break you or make you. We need to know that God is in complete control of our lives. Problems can either defeat us or make us stronger. It's up to you!

When the troubles of life attack you remember that you are not the victim, you are the Victor!

1. First you need to seek the Lord
2. You need a Vision of His Rewards
3. There are practical things to do in order to keep on track to your Rewards
4. You to know where you will receive the Rewards

Illustration
We need to have the right perspective of life. Life is too short to be wasted in things that don't matter.

Some people when they go on vacation, they get to the hotel room and they unpack everything. They take it all out of the suitcase and put it into those bureaus. I think I did that once when I was staying in the same place for three weeks. But if I'm only going to be around for a week or a few days, I don't even bother to unpack. I just leave everything in the suitcase and when I need it, I just take it out.

A. WHO WAS AMALEK?
Genesis 27:41 And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him; and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are very near. When [he is gone] I will kill my brother Jacob.

1. Here began a feud that was to cost countless lives throughout succeeding centuries. Esau's descendants, the Amalekites, were the first enemies to obstruct the flight of Jacob's descendants from Egypt (Exod. 17:8). Bloody battles were fought between the two nations in the centuries that followed. It was Herod, of Esau's race (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 14:1, Section 3), who had the male infants of Bethlehem slain in an effort to destroy the Christ Child (Matt. 2:16).

STRESSED IS DESSERTS SPELLED BACKWARDS!
A. LEARN TO REST BY THE WELL

John 4:6 - And Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, tired as He was from His journey, sat down [to rest] by the well. It was then about the sixth hour (about noon).

1. Jesus was tired of the Way and sat down close to the well of Jacob.
2. We need to sit close to the well whenever we are tired.
3. I've learned that the place to rest is not watching T.V. but by the well of Jacob (and we still have time there for a little bit of ministry)

Walt Disney - was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of ideas. Walt also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace, flunked out of college. He was described as "both unable and unwilling to learn."

Michael Jordan, perhaps the greatest basketball player of all time, did not make his high school basketball team his sophomore year.
Beethoven's teacher called him hopeless as a composer.
Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade. He did not become Prime Minister until he was 62. His greatest contributions came when he was a "senior citizen."
Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he finally succeeded.

Proverbs 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man; But the end thereof are the ways of death.

CONSIDER YOUR WAYS
You cannot make your way into the Holy Scriptures without having someone to go before you and show you the road.

Illustration
A drunken man got on the bus late one night, staggered up the aisle, and sat next to a woman who was clutching a Bible.
She looked the wayward drunk up and down and said, "I've got news for you, mister. You're going straight to hell!"
The man jumped up out of his seat and shouted, "Oh, man, I'm on the wrong bus again!"

We need to be sober and to know where we are going.