Tag: pain

Categories
Christian Living

Is My Physical Pain a Punishment From God For My Past Sins?

So the title above was the question I received from a friend a while back. The full question with some extra comments was posted yesterday. And I want to thank those of you who shared some of your responses with me.
a man holding his head in his hands, symbolizing pain - could such pain be a punishment from God?
It’s a serious questions, and one that many people wonder about. Here was my Response:
There is not much theological support for us having God continually punish us for past sins. Paul was a persecutor of the church, but when he repented, God used him greatly. He did end up having a “thorn in his flesh” to contend with, but God did not tell him it was because of punishment for past sins.

Yes, God does discipline His wayward children, but it is used to bring us to repentance and restoration. As you pointed out in the opening of your question, much of what we contend with in the areas of pain are simply consequences of our own making, which God allows us to experience.

A person who chooses to get drunk habitually may lose his family. This would be a consequence of his poor choice of behavior. But we also often are dealing with the consequences of someone else’s sinful behavior. For example, the person who loses his family to an accident caused by a drunk driver is suffering the consequences of someone else’s bad behavior. We live in a depraved, fallen world that makes life tough. That does not mean it is God’s punishment, but rather just the consequences of our inviting sin into this world which has caused continuous and growing damage.

In the same way, when Adam rebelled against God, he invited disorder into God’s perfect world. Sickness and disease have come to us due to this continued disorder and decay. And so we don’t typically look at the cancer that someone gets as being a direct punishment from God for a specific sin, but rather as a consequence of the decaying world that we (humanity) caused by our sin as a human race. So we find that our sin has even affected life on the cellular level.

Therefore, I wouldn’t look at an injury that is causing pain as punishment from God today for sins from your past. Rather I would look at the physical pain that you are experiencing as a consequence of living in a world that should have been pain-free, but is not due to our sin. Now we must live with pain while we long for the day when we can enter the eternal Kingdom where God will wipe every tear from our eyes.

Could God supernaturally heal us of the pain we are suffering in the here and now? Yes. And sometimes He does. But usually we are allowed to continue walking through the pain with our hand in His. Enduring the consequences of our own bad behaviors, the consequences of others’ bad behaviors that affect us, and the consequences of those “thorns in the flesh” – all of these help us learn as Paul did – that when we are weak in and of ourselves, we are able to find our strength in our relationship with Jesus.

And so to all who are struggling through pain or illness, may you place your hands in His, may you find your strength in Him, and may you continually look forward to celebrating together in eternity at having healed bodies and no more tears!

.

Categories
Christian Living

I Became a Christian and All My Problems Vanished!

“I Became a Christian and All My Problems Vanished!”
…ummm, I Don’t Believe You.

In fact, “I don’t believe you” is too mild a statement, but I didn’t want to offend you by writing what I really think about this statement. “I became a Christian, and now I don’t have anymore problems,” let’s just say that a person who says this or believes that it will come true is someone who is either a deceiver or deceived. Some who say it are lying because they think that is what they are supposed to say. Others believe it will come true because they have bought into the lie.

Does the Bible give us assurances that Jesus will walk with us through difficult times? Yes.
Does the Bible promise us that once we become Christians we will no longer have difficult times? Absolutely not.

In fact, Jesus says just the opposite – that trials and difficulties and persecutions will come, and that some of these will come directly as a result of following Him. So to say that becoming a Christian will make life easy is to attack the truthfulness of God’s own words.

Taking up one’s cross daily is difficult.
Engaging in spiritual warfare with the enemy is difficult.
Dealing with real persecution because of faith is difficult.

      …great assurances are scriptural and true—praise God, they are!
      But it is possible so to stress them, and so to play down the rougher side of the Christian life—the daily chastening, the endless war with sin and Satan, the periodic walk in darkness—as to give the impression that normal Christian living is a perfect bed of roses, a state of affairs in which everything in the garden is lovely all the time, and problems no longer exist—or, if they come, they have only to be taken to the throne of grace, and they will melt away at once.
      This is to suggest that the world, the flesh, and the devil will give us no serious trouble once we are Christians; nor will our circumstances and personal relationships ever be a problem to us; nor will we ever be a problem to ourselves. Such suggestions are mischievous, however, because they are false.
      Of course, an equally lopsided impression can be given the other way. You can so stress the rough side of the Christian life, and so play down the bright side, as to give the impression that Christian living is for the most part grievous and gloomy—hell on earth, in hope of heaven here-after! No doubt this impression has from time to time been given; no doubt the ministry we are examining here is partly a reaction against it. But it must be said that of these two extremes of error, the first is the worse, just to the extent that false hopes are a greater evil than false fears.
      The second error will, in the mercy of God, lead only to the pleasant surprise of finding that Christians have joy as well as sorrow. But the first, which pictures the normal Christian life as trouble-free, is bound to lead sooner or later to bitter disillusionment.

Life is difficult for everyone.
Life with Jesus makes for the best possible situation in this difficult life.
Life with Jesus, even though it brings in new difficulties, allows us to find His strength in the midst of the dark spots.
That is why Paul can say… Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

The Christian life is full of joy because of Jesus. But let us never deceive others by telling them the Christian life is trouble-free, because we never want someone to become disillusioned about Jesus because of us.


        (Quotes in today’s post are from Knowing God by J. I. Packer)


Categories
Christian Living

Joyless Christians

“Joyless Christians”
by brian rushing

The Word: Oxymoron.
It means: A combination of words that seemingly contradict each other.
There are some great ones we hear and use:

Jumbo shrimp.
Paid volunteers.
An Exact Estimate.
A Rolling Stop.
An Original Copy.
Seriously Funny.
Pretty Ugly.

But how about… Joyless Christian.

Too many people have indicated that they have no interest in Christianity because Christians seem negative and unkind and joyless. They wonder how we can call our God a good God if He turns His followers into such sour individuals.

“We need frankly to face ourselves at this point. We are, perhaps, orthodox evangelicals. We can state the gospel clearly; we can smell unsound doctrine a mile away. If asked how one may know God, we can at once produce the right formula: that we come to know God through Jesus Christ the Lord, in virtue of his cross and mediation, on the basis of his word of promise, by the power of the Holy Spirit, via a personal exercise of faith. Yet the joy, goodness, and celebratory spirit which are the marks of those who have known God are rare among us.”

drawing of a smile on a brick wall to remind us to not be joyless ChristiansHow can this be?
How can we who have been given the greatest gift of all time ever be considered miserable?

Paul indicated that he had learned contentment in every circumstance. How could he have joy in the midst of the difficulties he encountered in life – including suffering and pain? Because he knew that he was loved… in spite of himself.

We all want love, and yet we all worry that if anyone knew the real me, that love would be taken away. But Jesus loved me at my worst. And so I do not have to have any fear that his love will ever be taken away. And that should fill me with such unbelievable joy that the world can never accuse me of being sour or joyless.

“There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.”

As you consider that you are loved immensely by the Great King of this Universe, let it fill you up with joy. Ask God to remind you of His love today.

How well are you doing at keeping people from labeling you as that oxymoron of a Joyless Christian?

Strive to wear a smile throughout the day. Be quick to laugh with others. Have an attitude of joy. It is the right attitude for a child of God.


        (Quotes in today’s post are from Knowing God by J. I. Packer)


Categories
Relationships

Living Everyday In the Intensive Care Waiting Room

Many of us have had to spend time in an Intensive Care Waiting Room.

Knowing a loved one is behind those closed doors fighting for life.

Waiting with expectation for each of those 15-minute visits when the hospital staff opens the doors to let us see our loved one for a brief moment.

icu waiting room sign with hours of visiting posted

A pastor wrote about the ICU waiting room:

I have spent long hours in the hospital intensive care unit… watching with anguished people… listening to urgent questions: Will my husband make it? Will my child walk again? How can I live without my companion of thirty years?”

The intensive care waiting room is different from any other place in the world. And the people who wait are different. They can’t do enough for each other. No one is rude. The distinctions that divide people in society melt away. A person is a father first, and any other distinctions are less important. The man without a job loves his wife as much as the successful business owner loves his, and everyone understands this. Each person pulls for everyone else.

In the intensive care waiting room, the world changes. Vanity and pretense vanish. The universe is focused on the doctor’s next report. If only it will show improvement. Everyone knows that loving someone else is what life is all about.

Could we learn to love like that if we realized that every day of life is a day in the waiting room?

Life is like the Intensive Care Waiting Room, and yet we often fail to remember this. Life is full of struggle and pain and difficulty. But instead of an illness or injury that has us struggling for physical life, our real struggle is one of the spirit. Temptations and sin pour into our lives leading to worry and anxiety that chokes out our ability to breathe. And yet, we fail to realize that every one of us walking this planet are struggling in much the same way.

Therefore everyone needs to pull for everyone else.

Loving others is what life is all about. Let’s stop being divisive over secondary matters. Let those less important things melt away. Let someone know that you love them and are pulling for them today.

Categories
Christian Living

Broken Things

Brokenness.
Have you ever felt broken? a broken, shattered lightbulb
Most of us have at some point in life.
The pain seems so strong at that point. All joy seems gone. We are broken-hearted and feel as if we will never be able to smile again.

Peter had promised his friend Jesus that he would stand by His side no matter what. Then Peter denied Christ three times. The rooster crowed. Peter looked over at Jesus. Jesus’ eyes caught Peter’s. Peter remembered what Jesus had said. Peter had failed. He ran out of the courtyard weeping in his brokenness.

You’ve likely been in a similar place.
In pain.
Weeping.
Broken.

But there is good news about finding ourselves in a state of brokenness…

“God uses broken things.
It takes broken soil to produce a crop,
broken clouds to produce rain,
broken grain to give bread, and
broken bread to give strength.
It is the broken Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.
God can often use our brokenness to reveal His power to us and show us our dependence on Him.”

Paul tells us:
“…to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh…. I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults , with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

For when I am weak and broken… I find I can rely on God’s strength and become strong.

When we are dealing with “brokenness,” whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually, we are often more open to receive healing from God. This is due to the fact that at this point in life we become more ready to cry out to God in the midst of the brokenness. God often uses the brokenness of our spirit to bring us to a spiritual healing like he did in both Peter’s & Paul’s cases.