Finding Joy in Suffering, Pt. 2

So how are we to turn our suffering into a blessing?  That is a great question and one I seek to help you find an answer to.  I feel it is important for us to come to the realization that through our suffering comes good.  Let’s not misunderstand this statement, in no way am I saying that I like to hear that people are suffering because I know that God is using it for the betterment of them and/or those around them.  But let me also point out that my wisdom and understanding of this world is but a micro-sized speck compared to God’s wisdom.  There are many things that I hear and wish they would never have had to happen, but I do know that God is for us, not against us.  At the very least I hope that you can find peace in knowing that the Creator of all, He who loved us so much that He came to this earth in the flesh, so that we could be saved; He is paving the road that we all travel.  It is He that is bringing these difficulties into our lives.  It is so important to know that God loves us, because otherwise we could be discouraged at the thought of God bringing pain into our lives.  If we will just take the right approach when dealing with our hardships, we will allow God to use them for the good He intends them to be.  If you ever begin to get discouraged at the fact that God has created these pains for your life, and you just do not see the light at the end of the tunnel, not being able to see why or how God could use them for good, please do not turn your back on God.  Know that He loves you more than you could ever realize.  Do not forget that the greatest act of love ever committed was done by God Himself, and He did it for you.  In scripture we learn that Jesus is God in the Flesh.  Jesus and God are one in the same, there is no difference between the two, Jesus is God and God is Jesus.  So when you are down, do not let it escape you that He who is allowing these difficulties in your life, is the same One that sacrificed Himself for you, so that you could forever be in His presence.  Friends, I do not know about you, but I know in my heart that God’s love for us is so deep that He provides us our salvation. He would not bring sufferings into our lives unless it was for our own good. 

Finding Joy in Suffering, Pt.1

             The topic I will be talking about today is not necessarily a popular one.  I will dive into the idea of rejoicing during our suffering.  Yes, we should rejoice in our suffering and I hope to help you better understand why.  We are all going to suffer, in a sense, to be alive means you will suffer.  Perhaps some of you are suffering in such a way that hurts so badly you begin to ask God why you were born.  Your life is full of pain and disappointment; you just do not understand why God created such a downtrodden life.  I tell you that Job is a testament to your suffering.  There is ongoing, continual suffering in this world all the time.  Why has such a loving God created a world that is filled with so much pain and hardships?

            Take for a moment if you will, to contemplate what it must be like, though we are unable of fully experiencing this, what it must be like to be God.  As we learn from the bible, God sees everything.  This means that God sees all evil, sin, pain, suffering… there is never a moment that God is not seeing suffering.  See, we can make an effort to block out suffering from our lives; we can turn the TV set off or not read the paper if we choose.  Unlike us, God never has a moment in which He turns away from the suffering that is constantly taking place.  We also know from the bible that God hears everything.  At all times, God hears those who are weeping and wailing, screaming out in pain.  So again, I ask you to imagine what it must be like to be God.  Now let us be careful not to question God when doing this, recall that God is perfect in all He does, so we should not think in such a way as , “if I was God I would take the pains away from the world.”  Though God has promised this to us in Revelations 21:4, we are living in a time before this has come to pass and God’s timing is perfect.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelations 21:4)

God is Our Hope

            Isaiah 40:28-31 -- Do you not know?  Have you not heard? 
The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. 
He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom. 
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. 
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. 
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Every day we hear of news that is unfortunate.  Whether it comes from a national news station, a local station, or from the mouth of friends and family.  We are surrounded by difficulties, both the worlds and our own.  We must push through these hardships with hope.  Hope for a better tomorrow, hope for happiness, hope for grace, hope for this world to be a better place.  Let us focus our hope in God above all others, for He is our eternal hope.

            When we stop and think about the holiness of God, we can easily be frightened because of the sins we have committed.  Think about it, He who judges us sinners has never sinned, and the furious wrath of God is coming for sin.  He is without error; there is not one thing God has done that was wrong.  God is so magnificent, He has no equal as we read in Isaiah 45:

            I am the LORD, and there is no other; 
apart from me there is no God. 
I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting people may know there is none besides me.  I am the LORD, and there is no other. (Isaiah 45:5-6)

Such A Big World: Do I Make A Difference

2 Timothy 2:3 -- Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

Ecclesiastes 7:14 -- When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other.

Living in such a massive world makes it easy for us to feel like our actions have no significant meaning.  If we just venture out into our solar system we see even more so how small we are.  It is funny though, at the very time we feel so small, we also have the pressures of this world on our shoulders.  Is it not interesting that in the very same second that we feel we cannot make a difference in this world, we allow this world to bring us down to such a level that we feel the size of a sand pebble?  What is it about us that let the burdens we face, directly and indirectly, affect our daily lives to the extent of stealing our joy from us?  Why are we not as quick to be motivated to do good for others, as we are to do good for ourselves?  We need to make a strong effort to reprogram our brains to get just as motivated to help others in whichever way God has placed in our hearts as this is pleasing to God.

            Philippians 2:4 – Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interest of others.

            Hebrews 13:16 – Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. 

Questioning God?

Why do we question God?  He has never failed us, yet we question Him when things do not go our way.  And that's just it, we are quick to ask God why things go the way they do when they are not in our favor.  Seldom do we question God when everything falls in place just as we hoped it would.  How many times each day do you thank God for the job you have, the roof over your head or the means of transportation you use each day?  Once? Twice? A few times? Yet we will constantly pray to God for a blessing if we are unemployed, homeless, or had no way of getting from point A to point B.  We need to give God our full attention always, regardless of our current circumstances. 

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. –Ephesians 6:18

Faith in God's Greatness

           Many of the decisions we make in life are centered on fear, or lack there of.  Fear is always directly tied to doubt.  We fear what we doubt.  When we doubt our decisions or circumstances, we fear the possible outcome.  If I take a test and have doubt in my answers, I fear that I will make a bad grade.  Another example, some Christians will feel an urge to promote and spread the Word of God to people in hard to reach places, either in this country or another.  But many who have this feeling will turn their back to it.  They doubt the situation, and as a result turn away in fear.  They may feel they do not have adequate resources or protection, or both, so they ignore the calling.  We see the Israelites doubt God’s greatness in Numbers 13-14.

In Numbers 13-14, the Israelites doubted God’s promise to deliver them into the promise land.  When the men Moses sent to explore Canaan (the land God was giving the Israelites) returned, they presented a negative report on the land.  We see these men show immense doubt in God’s greatness in Numbers 13:31-32, “But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.  And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.”  Due to the negative reports from the men who scouted the land, fellow Israelites began to express the same amount of fear and doubt. In Numbers 14:1-4 the people rebel against the LORD:

“That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness! Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”

Heaven or Hell, Pt.2

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.” – John 3:36

            In part 1 we learned about the one true account out of the various ones circulating this world concerning death.  This truth comes from the Bible and only the Bible.  Anybody out there who denounces the Bible’s explanation is lost and I pray they will find God and seek His word for clarification.  God is infinitely wise, hence His word is perfect; therefore He has no need to “edit” any of the text found in the Bible, He had it right the first time. 2 Samuel 22:31 says this so wonderfully, “As for God, His way is perfect: The LORD’s word is flawless; He shields all who take refuge in Him.” 

            Hell is a wretched, cursed place.  It is isolated from all; there is no special link to Heaven that allows communication between the two places.  If loved ones are touched by the grace of God and can call Heaven home, you will forever be isolated from them.  This is such a painful thought for me, to think of a day in which I could be forever separated from those I love including Jesus, the One who loved me the most (if the destination is Hell that is, for in Heaven you will forever be in His presence).  This is a driving force as to why we all need to put faith in Jesus and do all that we can to help those around us trust in Him as well.  Jesus explains this separation in the parable found in Luke 16:19-31, the parable about a rich man and Lazarus.  When the rich man died he went to Hell, from which he pleaded with God to relieve him of the torment he was enduring.  Then Jesus tells us about the isolation from Heaven in Luke 16:26, “…between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.”

Heaven or Hell, Pt.1

We all know that our days are numbered.  What we struggle to understand is what happens when that day comes.  As humans, we struggle with things that are uncertain. It is somewhat difficult to speak on what happens after we die, mainly due to the fact that I am not a man raised from the grave.  I do not want to make the impression that I know exactly how the events will unfold when we die, but I do want to expose you to His word about that day.  None of us know what truly happens, but we have more than we could ever need, His word.  I pray that I can help you hear His word, giving all glory to Him.  God will never give us more than we can handle, and that includes the subject of death.

We have all heard of or experienced the loss of someone.  It is when those we love leave us that we really begin to face the question of what happens.  The sense of uncertainty can magnify our pain.  There is nothing wrong with grieving for those that are no longer with us, for they are people, influences that can never be replaced.  My fear is that some of our greatest sorrows come from the fact that we do not have God at the center of our heart.  At the end of the day we must trust in God, for His plan is perfect.  We must seek His word, for how can a man trust in what he does not know?  Through His word, we grow in our relationship with Him.

So what happens when we die?  The simple truth is we will go to Heaven or Hell.  You must make a choice; you must decide what you are going to believe.  Yes, God is Sovereign, ultimately only He decides who comes to Him and who does not.  But I deeply believe that if you are reading this right now, He wants you to choose Him.  He has put in your heart the desire to seek Him, to find His infinite love for you.  I pray that if you are on the fence or a non-believer, you will continue to seek and learn about God; because once you have experienced God’s love, there is no doubt in my mind that you will choose Him.

Our Label

     As humans we all want to be seen as up-rightous, good to do people.  None of us wish to be sour souls, with our only purpose each day being a thorn in someone else's side.  We all wish to be treated with respect, seen as morally good people by our peers.  With all of the social networking sites and the internet, it is easy to get caught up in the way others see or label us as a person.  And because of this, it is easier than ever for more and more of our peers to gain access to our lives.  Now we don't just have those around us daily that we seek to impress, if you will, but rather we have the people we only see once a month or even longer that we feel our impression needs to be made well of to as well.  Now this opens a door to a greater sense of responsibility of the way we conduct ourselves, because no longer is our image seen by a small group of people, but rather a large community of people.

The Importance of His Blood

     The crucial question that we will be asking throughout our lives is a complex and daunting one.  It is in scripture that we must seek the answer to this mighty question.  We will get to the question later in this blog, but first I want to talk about Exodus 12 and 24.  In short, what has happened up to the point of Exodus 12, is God has instructed Moses to lead His people out of Egypt.  We have had nine of the ten plagues occur, with the tenth on the horizon.  The tenth plague being the plague on the firstborn.  So in Exodus 12, we have God telling Moses what must be done in order to keep Death from claiming the Israelites firstborn.  Don't miss the fact that the Destruction comes to all of the doors, not just the Egyptians.  We all will face Judgement, believer and none believer.
     As for the Israelites, each family is to take a spotless lamb into their home on the tenth day of the current month, and on the fourteenth day, use this lamb as a sacrifice to God.  They were then to "take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses..."(Exodus 12:7)  For when the Destroyer comes, the blood of the spotless lamb will save the families firstborn.  It is by grace that this sacrifice is acceptable to God, and through the faith of the Israelites the sacrifice was applied to them.
    In Exodus 24, God's covenant was confirmed by blood.  Moses and the Israelites were delivered from Egypt at this point and the Lord told Moses to "Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel."(Exodus 24:1)  Moses was to approach the Lord alone however, and when he returned he told them the words and laws of the Lord.  They then sacrificed young bulls to the Lord.  I recommend reading the entire chapter of Exodus 24, but I want to focus in particular on Exodus 24:8, "Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, "This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you  in accordance with all these words.""
     Then Moses and those with him "...saw the God of Israel."(Exodus 24:10)  Now they didn't actually see His face, as it says they were under his feet and "...God did not raise his hand against these leaders..."(Exodus 24:11)  Now behold the significance of God's law, and the beauty of His Mercy.  God's people are forgiven by blood.  Moses and those with him were covered in the blood of the sacrifice they had made to God, and because of this they were able to stand in His most holy presence.

The Love of God

     Happy Easter!  What a wonderful celebration it is for all, especially those who accept Christ as their Lord and Savior!  For Easter Sunday, I hope that you will see the great love God has for us, His children.  There is much that I would love to share with you today, but I will do my best to not write a novel ;) First, I ask you to look at Ephesians 1, which is filled with great news for us.  I want us to focus on Ephesians 1:4-7 which says:
     "For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.  In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will-- to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves.  In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace.."
     We all are familiar with pain, sadness, hurt, loneliness, regret.. all the effects of sin surround us constantly.  How can a world full of sin be restored in such a manner that would be allowed in the presence of a holy and perfect God?  How can we, sinners, be redeemed to a God that has such a powerful wrath that He is ready to fiercely unleash on sin?  Jesus alone has the right to redeem us.  Jesus is God in the flesh, He is human like us.  Now you may wonder, "why are you saying He is human and not was human?"  Friends, let us rejoice in what Easter Sunday is a celebration of, the resurrection of our King!  He is alive!  Jesus has the resources to redeem us.  Jesus has power over sin, as he never committed sin.  Understand that Jesus was tempted in all the ways as you and I, but He has the power over it; He was able to resist the temptations of sin.  Think about this-- to save us from sin, one must have never sinned.  For how could one who sins save us from the thing he himself needs to be saved from?  Jesus has authority over death.  No man has ever gone to the grave saying he will return and had it come to pass other than the one and only, Jesus Christ!

What to Desire?

      As earthly humans we have desires.  We desire a successful job, happy family, nice car, house, friends...  The list could go on and on as to the things we do and will desire in this world.  Some people will say that having these earthly desires is sacrilegious, that the ONLY thing we should desire is God.  While it is hard for a Christian to say they disagree, the truth of the matter is there is nothing wrong with having desires to prosper and lead a happy life.  The key is to understand where your priorities are.  Yes, God should be and I prayerfully hope is our ultimate desire.  We should desire Him above all else, but that does not mean there is something wrong with wanting to have a house for your family, or a job that pays well.  This is a very tricky topic, as it is ok to have wants for these worldly possessions, but if we let it, it can become something that takes us from Jesus.  When we start to want that gadget more than we wish to be in the presence of the Lord, there is a problem.  If you ever feel there is something that you must have, something that is needed otherwise you will lose your joy, your purpose, you have lost the sight of God.  God is the only One who should demand such respect.  No earthly thing compares to the greatness of God.  Why pursue anything other than the Lord with such passion, when Life is in Jesus.

Welcome!

      Hello all!  I would like to personally welcome you to my blog that will be completely dedicated to spreading the word of the gospel!  I first want to start off by giving you an idea of what to expect.  I hope to use this blog as a way to reach others and help them in their walk with or to Jesus.  I expect to post a new blog each week, not daily.  I think this will work best as I feel that we should take a week to reflect on the teachings from the gospel and take the time to meditate on the topic of the week.  This will help us to better retain and live out the words of our Lord.  All of the blogs will be of the teachings I have received and feel the impulse to talk about.  I have no Biblical concentrated college degrees or anything of that sort, but that does not mean I am not a student of Christ and His word.  I urge all to participate in discussions and give their opinions on the matters being talked about in each blog.  I expect this to be done in a respectful manner though.  We all have been created uniquely and with that uniqueness comes different views or ways of looking at things.  Now, we can learn from others; but if we feel strongly about something and our view of that is set in stone please remember to keep your actions/comments respectful, and conduct yourself in a Christ-like manner.  I look forward to growing closer to Christ with you through this blog and I hope He will open your heart and speak to you in ways that no man can!

God Bless All!