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Showing posts with label Suffering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Suffering. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Real Suffering in a Real Life of Faith - Light in the Darkness – Purity 727

 


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.  

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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------------------------

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the mt4christ247 podcast!

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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship



[1] John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003), 102–104.