WARNING PREACHY
I’m considering the reason for Christian suffering. Previously I wrote about the first reason
that I considered as to why Christians suffer – disregard of the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit [1]. You can read about that by following the link. Now, the second reason that
Christians suffer is simply because we live in a fallen world; a world that has
been cursed by God.
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate
fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ Cursed is the ground because of
you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It
will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the
field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you
return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to
dust you will return.”
Genesis
(3:17-19)
Let’s face it; we live in a sinful world that is
decaying. As sure as the new becomes old
and the fresh becomes stale there will always be something that causes us grief
and suffering in our lives. The world
into which we are born is cursed and we live in a state of falleness and
sin.
"What a world! What a world!" ~The dying words of the Wicked Witch of West
"What a world! What a world!" ~The dying words of the Wicked Witch of West
It’s the everyday reality, just turn on the news. You have the radical Muslims blowing up and
shooting everyone else, we have what seems to be a literal race war between the
blacks in America and the police, and the American government is trying its
very best to make acceptable the murder of the unborn children in this
country. The world is corrupt because
the devil is the rightful ruler of it. Not
only are humans animalistic toward other humans, we then have the so-called “acts
of God” such as famine, tornadoes, floods, fires, tsunamis, and the like. These occur regularly. And all the while we grow from having skin as
soft as a baby’s butt to wrinkly and calloused until we return back to the dust
from which we started. This world is
simply designed to be one big box of sorrows, struggles, and suffering.
And yet amidst all of that, it is good.
I have come that they may have life, and have it to
the full. (John 10:10b)
We are born into a world that is in fact cursed by God
and we are invited to be in relationship with Him. A relationship does not take away any of
the pain or struggles that we live among but the relationship does bring us
comfort during life's storms.
Yes, we Christians do struggle and suffer through
many things in our lives. And yes, we
will often feel the despair and hopelessness of it all throughout our
lives. But as Christians, we have a hope
because we know that no matter what we are experiencing, it is not the end of
the story. For in Christ we know that
even death is not the end because our hope is in the resurrection, which is a
whole new beginning. Faith in the invisible against the physical that we see seems like an impossible way of helping us to combat the suffering that can come upon us, but this is exactly the point.
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who
comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who
earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)
Next time, I will look at the final reason that we
Christians suffer, and that reason is, quite frankly, because we are Christians
and we endeavor to live contrary to our old natures in this world that does not
make it easy for us to do so. Be sure to
read part 3 of Why do Christians Suffer next week.
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