It is obvious to me that being a Christian will not guarantee, a life without suffering, in the word of God you see very godly people suffering greatly. Here's the sad thing there are those who preach a prosperity so called gospel, of course they stipulate,the secret is in giving to God. All that means is you can buy God's favour and of course you can't,Philip Yancey writing on the book of Job says ,' It represents a step beyond the ''contract faith'' assumed in most of Old Testament;Do good and get blessed, do bad and get punished', If we base our faith on a lap sided point of view as regards the OT or even the NT,then what are we going do when trials come upon us? Jacob wrestled with an angel he received a blessing, but he also came away with a limp for the rest of his life.( Genesis 32 v 22 - 32).Paul was a man of God the greatest of the apostles,and God blessed his ministry ,but he had to live with a thorn in the flesh (2 Cor 12 ).Godly people do suffer,and so we must the facts we will not be excluded from suffering,and that's a fact.Philip Yancey sums up the book of Job,here is what he says,' It is not about suffering....Seen as a whole,the book is about faith, the story of one man selected by God to undergo a staggering ordeal by trial.' Most of us have to narrow a view of suffering,no one wants to suffer,and we hide from the truth and believe that being good and doing all the right things well,will preserve us from suffering,but it won't, God declared Job the best man on earth ( Job 1v 8) Yancey writes,'Yet Job suffers the worst calamities,which poses a test of faith in its most extreme form,'
'Dear Lord grant us the grace
that when you send suffering into
our lives, we will not fail the test
of trusting you. Amen.'
No comments:
Post a Comment