Real Suffering in a Real Life of Faith - Light in the
Darkness – Purity 727
Purity 727 05/10/2022 Purity 727 Podcast
Good morning,
Today’s photo twilight from the vantage point of the parking lot
outside of Regal Theaters in Clifton Park NY comes to us from yours truly as I
stopped to capture this scene on the way into the movies with my family on
Saturday Night.
When I took this photo a part of me wanted to focus on the
horizon to just capture the contrasts of pink, and purple of the night sky
because the foreground wasn’t exactly breathtaking but in the moment decided to
just take it as it was. Even though I
loved the sky I captured, I had serious doubts whether I would ever share this
photo because let’s face it, it was just a photo from a parking lot after
all.
But this morning I am suffering from a strain in my left calf
that didn’t quite work itself out with this morning’s work out and my morning
Bible Study included Psalm 88, which deals with suffering and doesn’t conclude
with a happy ending, and I thought that this photo portrayed the idea of beauty
in the mundane and suffering in a real life of faith that I am being moved to
share on this Tuesday morning.
Heck, even the day, as it is only the second day of the work
week, points to the need to be faithful even when it might not seem we have
much to be happy about.
Yup, life comes with suffering. From aches and pains and other
medical concerns, to hunger, to financial difficulties, and to traumatic losses, sometimes life is a regular provider of “lemons”
which could cause us to reply “What’s so good about it?!?” when someone
innocently wishes us to “Have a nice day!”
Unfortunately, there can sometimes be an over emphasis on “making
lemonade out of lemons” in the church as there is a tendency to encourage one
another to “put on a happy face” that can cause irritation or make those who
are suffering to feel they belong at the Sunday service. There is a false perception of the church
that the enemy pushes that makes those who are struggling or hurting feel they
are not welcome.
In churches that believe in and pray for miraculous healings, it
may seem that our faith has failed us or we don’t belong in the midst of such
hope when sickness, disease, and pain are a part of our daily experience.
In church circles where “Word of Faith” theology is subtly or
not so subtly practiced, the hurting are encouraged to ignore or deny their
pains as they are prompted to “believe for their healing.” and actually told to
not to pray “if it is your will Lord” which actually flies in the face of what
Jesus Himself Prayed in:
Matthew 6:10
(NKJV)
10
Your
kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
And even in what appeared to be His most desperate moment in the Garden of Gethsemane in
Luke 22:42
(NKJV) Jesus said
42 … "Father,
if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but
Yours, be done.":
I know when I suffered a
personal tragedy in the loss of my infant son, my nominal faith wasn’t enough to keep me in the church as I
thought that God had broken “the deal” where I thought that because I went to
church once a week, my continual sins would be continually forgiven and
overlooked and my family and I would be insulated from pain and suffering.
I had a wrong view of what our faith is. I mean really, Christ being persecuted, suffering
and dying on the cross should clue us all in to the reality of suffering as
part of our lives, even when we are Christs. Christ even told us we would
suffer because of our faith in
Matthew 5:44-45 (NKJV) where He said
44 But
I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those
who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,
45 that
you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil
and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
I don’t know about you but a part of
me thought that being a Christian was the right thing to do and the idea that
people would hate us for it and that rain
would fall on the just, in equal measure to that it would fall on the unjust just
doesn’t seem fair!
But the fact of suffering in our lives,
instead of being denied or ignored actually holds to the key to our hope and
the key to our overcoming the world with Christ as the Apostle Paul referring
to the thorn in his flesh, that the Lord didn’t heal him of, told us in ,
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (NKJV)
9 And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made
perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in
my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in
infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for
Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
The strength and power of our faith comes in the
acknowledgement of our suffering and in our still proclaiming the goodness of
God because we know, as Paul said in
Romans 8:18 (NKJV)
18 For I consider that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed in us.
Our suffering is real.
God doesn’t always heal us.
Unless Christ comes back before our bodies fail us, we will all die in
the flesh.
It’s okay to acknowledge the pain we have, the struggles we
are going through, and to “keep it real” but after we weep, to make the pain
manageable we should remember who we are in Christ and how our Lord and Savior
Himself and all the saints throughout history have suffered too.
Ours is not a Pollyanna faith, we should recognize the
suffering we go through and allow it to make us grow closer to the Lord who
will strengthen and mature our faith even when our bodies are weak.
The days of our walk of faith won’t always be filled with
sunshine and rainbows but when we remember Christ’s sufferings and His glorious
resurrection and ascension into heaven, we should connect to the fact that “death
has lost its sting” and that there is nothing that can separate us from the
love of God.
When we internalize our identity in Christ and commune in
the Lord’s presence, we don’t have to fake it. We don’t have to “put on a happy
face” because the joy of the Lord is our strength and we can overcome the world,
the flesh, and the devil by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony
that confesses that we were once blind but now see, and that while we are weak
we are strong, and that while we were dead in our trespasses in sins , we have
been forgiven and been given a new and everlasting life in Christ.
So grin and bear it, or bear it and grin, but don’t let surface
deep, an outward expression to hide your pain.
Let your smile come from the inside, from the joy that the Holy Spirit
produces in your life, when you decide to keep walking and talking with God
even when it hurts.
______________________________________________________________
Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book
for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
Psalm 106:2
(NLT2)
2
Who
can list the glorious miracles of the LORD?
Who can ever praise him enough?
Today’s Bible verse rejoices over the multitude of miracles that the Lord
has done and indicates that we can never quite praise the Lord enough.
The holy scriptures are filled with the miraculous moves of God both in
the Old and New Testament. People knew that
the Lord was with the patriarchs. the nation of Israel, the prophets, and with
Jesus and the Apostles because of the accompanying signs and wonders that happened
when they sought to do the Lord’s will on earth.
The miracles that happened all had one thing in common: they all
pointed to the existence and the present reality of God.
And so we know that what the people in the Bible told us about God is
true. The Lord backed up what they said
with miracles and divine providence.
As Nicodemus said to Jesus in
John 3:2 (NKJV)
2 …, we know that You are a
teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is
with him."
The miracles tell us we can be assured that Christ was the Messiah. But as today’s verse indicates they also tell
us that we should praise the Lord and that we can never praise Him enough.
So praise the Lord in song, in prayer, but don’t forget that the greatest
praise we can give the Lord is to repentant and to surrender our lives to His will. The Lord has done so many miraculous things
and when we decide to follow Him in Spirit and in truth, we become another
miraculous sign of His coming that we ourselves can rejoice in and praise Him
for.
As
always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from
prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and
sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today
we continue sharing from John Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life”.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes
and encourage all to purchase John Pipers’ books for your own private
study and to support his work. This resource is available on many
websites for less than $5.00.
Not Christians
Because They Do Not Want to Give
Robert Murray M’Cheyne, a
Scottish pastor who died at the age of twenty-nine in 1843, spoke of the mercy
and generosity of Christians as the evidence that they were indeed Christians.
He loved the poor in his parish, and he feared for those who did not look for
ways to show them mercy.
I am concerned for the poor but more for you.
I know not what Christ will say to you in the great day.… I fear there are many
hearing me who may know well that they
are not Christians, because they do not love to give. To give largely and
liberally, not grudging at all, requires a new heart; an old heart would rather
part with its life-blood than its money. Oh my friends! Enjoy your money; make
the most of it; give none away; enjoy it quickly for I can tell you, you will
be beggars throughout eternity.
The Dilemma Where We no Longer Hang
What is the nature and aim
of glad-hearted, Christian giving? It is the effort—with as much creativity and
sacrifice as necessary—to give others everlasting and ever-increasing joy—joy
in God. If God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, as we
argued in Chapter 2, then living for the glory of God must mean that we live to
gladly make others glad in God. Our gladness and our pursuit of their gladness
glorifies God. And since gladness in God is the greatest and most lasting
happiness, pursuing it is also love. Since the same joy in God both satisfies
man and glorifies God, we never have to choose between the motive to love
people or to glorify God. By gladly pursuing the gladness of others in God—even
at the cost of our lives—we love them
and honor God. This is the opposite
of a wasted life.
We Cannot Make Anyone Glad in God
How then do we make others
glad in God? That is what the next chapters are about. But first there are two
clarifications I should make. The first clarification is that, of course, we
can’t make anyone glad in God. Joy in
God is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). It is called “the joy of
the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians
1:6). It is the work of God: “May the God
of hope fill you with all joy and peace” (Romans 15:13). It is the effect of
God’s grace: “We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia,
for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of
generosity” (2 Corinthians 8:1–2). Joy in God is awakened in the heart when God
graciously opens our eyes to see the glory of Christ in the Gospel (2
Corinthians 4:4).
Nevertheless,
even though joy in God is ultimately a gift of God, he uses means to bring
people into the fullness of it. Paul described his whole ministry as laboring
for the joy of others. “Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy” (2
Corinthians 1:24). He said to the Philippian church that the reason God would
let him live was “for your progress and joy
in the faith” (Philippians 1:25). Jesus said that his own words were the means
God would use to give joy to his disciples: “These things I have spoken to you,
that my joy may be in you, and that
your joy may be full” (John 15:11).
He also said that prayer was a means of joy: “Until now you have asked nothing
in my name. Ask, and you will
receive, that your joy may be full”
(John 16:24). The list of means could go on. But the point here is simply to
show that there are things we can do to make people glad in God, provided God
blesses our efforts with his decisive grace.[1]
---------------------------more
tomorrow------------------------
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
