Jesus Christ came close enough to look people in the eye and do something about their suffering. He brought hope into situations of deep despair, by healing the sick, restoring the marginalised and even raising the dead. People matter to Jesus. Jesus himself experienced great suffering.
Right at the centre of Christianity is not a symbol of victory and triumph, but of execution and death. Jesus was arrested and tried unfairly, sentenced to death, betrayed and disowned by his closest friends, flogged, beaten up, nailed to a cross and left to die of asphyxiation. The prophet Isaiah 53 describes Jesus hundreds of years beforehand as, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.
During times of suffering, we feel most at home with those who have been through something similar.
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- How can I reconcile belief in God with suffering?;
- Sliding Home (Richmond Rogues Book 4).
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- Beyond a Divided Cyprus: A State and Society in Transformation?
- HAKATACHANPON (Japanese Edition).
With Jesus there is a shared experience of suffering. He knows because he has been there. Yet, Jesus has not just suffered like us, he has also suffered for us in a way that goes far beyond anything we have experienced. Jesus died so that we can live.
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Jesus took all of our mistakes, regrets, guilt, failures upon himself, so that we can know forgiveness, comfort, restoration and peace with God. It may help us to think about situations where relationships are so broken that mediation is needed. For effective mediation we need someone who understands the problem but is not part of it. To solve the problem of evil we need someone who can identify with evil but themselves do not contain any.
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The only person in history to meet both criteria is Jesus Christ. He is the only person who never contributed to the problem of evil and the only one able to defeat it.
Jesus, who did no evil, said no evil and thought no evil, allowed himself to be consumed by evil so that if we trust in him we never have to be consumed by evil in this life or the next. Evil does not have to have the last word. The incredible news is that our freedom is still intact. We are free to choose God, or we are free to walk away.
Whatever life has thrown at us, we have the choice to go through it without God, or with him. Christ does not always offer us answers, but he does offer us himself. Our stories are broken.
If God is all powerful and loving, why is there suffering in the world?
For some, our suffering is getting worse, not better. The mother in her final days of terminal cancer, the son with a degenerative disease for which there is no cure. Is there any way that our broken stories can be fixed once and for all? The best you can do is live well, and fight evil and suffering with science and technology. Make the most of this life because it is the only one you get. In Eastern thought there are repeating stories. If you suffer in this life you must have caused it in a previous life. In Christianity, this is not the end of the story.
- If God exists, why is there suffering? – St Paul's Ealing;
- If God Is Loving, Why Is there So Much Pain in this Life? | tandjfoods.com?
- How can I reconcile belief in God with suffering?.
- Maggie, a Girl of the Streets and Other New York Writings (Modern Library Classics).
- Complete Works of Thomas Manton, Volume V?
Our broken stories are fixed by embedding them in a much bigger story in which good wins and evil loses. Evil has been defeated on that first Easter and one day it will be removed altogether. One day there will be a new heaven and a new earth and God will wipe every tear from our eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will pass away. The fact that this day has not arrived yet is not because God wants to prolong our suffering, but because he wants this message of hope to spread far and wide and to draw in as many as possible.
If the problem of evil resides in every human heart, then the need to be right with God on the day he removes it altogether could never be more urgent. Yet, through Jesus Christ and his life, death and resurrection, it is possible to know forgiveness for the past, comfort in the present and hope for the future. Looking at God, Evil and Personal Suffering".
- If God exists, why is there suffering?.
- If There Is A God, Why Is There So Much Pain And Suffering? | Valley Forge Baptist.
- How can I believe in God when there’s so much suffering?.
- If God Is Loving, Why Is there So Much Pain in this Life??
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We are a New Wine network church. If God exists, why is there suffering?
If There Is A God, Why Is There So Much Pain And Suffering?
God knew that in order for love to exist, free will would also have to exist. In a world where He gave humans the choice to love or hate, He knew some would choose the latter and pain would inevitably be the price. But, He is about taking the wrongs and making something beautiful of them. And so He constantly offers opportunities for His children to exercise that free will in love towards one another so that some of what has been broken can be remade.
Pain offers opportunity for growth in love. Pain is a unique opportunity for humanity to choose whether it will love God for who He is, rather than for the gifts that He bestows upon His creation. Granted, God loves to give to His children. God wants to be loved for who He is -- for His mercy, grace, kindness, compassion, and other attributes -- and not because He makes life easy for us.
God allows pain to remind us that our home is not in this world, that our real life begins in the afterlife, in heaven. He wishes for us to long for that place. And pain has a way of keeping our hope there, rather than on earth. This is a good thing, for heaven promises more wonderful, beautiful things than those which are found here. Earth is for deciding whether we will love one another as well as our Creator; Heaven is where our experience of life will find its fruition. God has made it possible for you to know Him and experience an amazing change in your own life. Discover how you can find peace with God.
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If God Is Real Then Why Is There So Much Pain And Suffering? | Common Ground Church
Accept the way God does things, for who can straighten what he has made crooked? Skip to main content. The Christian Broadcasting Network CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. While God grows our faith through pain, it is not His foremost reason for allowing us to hurt. Can God change your life?