This month we are approaching Easter Sunday which we often call Resurrection Sunday, for it is a remembrance of that first Easter Sunday on which Jesus Christ our Lord rose from the grave. While it is good and right for us to celebrate Easter each year, perhaps we also need reminding that every Sunday is a resurrection Sunday. Indeed, each Sunday that we gather is a continued celebration of the Risen King and of our expectation of His return to rule and to reign forevermore.
Pain, evil, and suffering do not win the day. Perhaps we struggle to believe that God has good reasons for allowing such things. Perhaps we struggle to hold onto the goodness and love of God in the present moment. This is precisely the point when we can comfort ourselves and others with the future promise of God. One day there will be no more tears or pain or death. God will himself comfort us for we shall see Him face to face.
What we mean by this is that suffering reveals things about God and His character that we wouldn’t know or experience otherwise. There are certain aspects of God’s character that would be unknown apart from an experience of evil and suffering. How would we know that God is compassionate if we never had a need? How would we realize that God is both just and justifier if there never was the evil of sin? How would we experience the comfort of God if we never felt loneliness, pain, or grief? How would we know that God as healer if there were no hurts?
“Pain insists on being attended to.” What an insightful statement. Pain is something that cannot be ignored, and God knows it. We are lulled into a deception about our own sinful condition, but God uses pain and suffering to wake us from our stupor—“to shout” to us. In other words, God allows for suffering and evil to get our attention so that He might draw us back to Himself. For in reconciliation with Him is the promise of healing and the wiping away of every tear.
Knowing why God allows suffering and pain won’t make me feel any better. It’s been said before that Job still had to face empty seats at the family dinner table even though he discovered (to some degree) that God had been doing a great work in his life even through his difficulty and grief. Asking why won’t lead me to an emotionally satisfying place, but it can lead me to a fruitful discovery nonetheless. Asking why leads us to some discovery about ourselves and our God that can lead us into a deeper relationship with and love for a God infinitely bigger, wiser, and more majestic than I can imagine.
“How can a good God who loves me allow me to feel do depressed and despairing? Why would He allow me to experience such terrible pain and suffering? Have you ever heard someone ask a question like this? Have you ever asked a question like this yourself? I’d venture that most of us have at least thought something like this even if we never put words to it. When we face difficulty and pain, our first inclination is typically “Why God?” Why do bad things happen to good people? Simply put, there are no “good people.” But we can take it a little further than this. This question has often come on the lips of Christians who know God and understand the gospel. They know that they aren’t a good person but a sinner saved by God’s grace. So, let’s take the question a bit further, “Why does God allow suffering and difficultyfor His children?” That might be an even harder question.
God has made humans in two genders—male and female (Gen. 1:26-27). Each person from conception is made in God’s image according to God’s design for their sex and gender (Ps. 139: 13-16). These genders are inextricably tied to our biology and are fixed. In other words, biological sex=gender. Sex and gender aren’t realities that can be chosen or changed because of disordered feelings that we have about our bodies. Binary gender (maleness and femaleness) is God's wise design for our good. There are many in our world right now who are struggling and confused about who God made them to be. They are inundated with messages everyday that drive a spiral into deeper and deeper confusion. Let us be a people who are willing to tell the truth about God’s good design, who are willing to listen and pray with those who are struggling, and ultimately who are willing to lead them to a place of hope and healing through a relationship with Jesus. The Cass Report has demonstrated that medical intervention isn’t the answer for those suffering confusion about who God made them to be. The Bible gives us the solution by making plain God’s good design and promising transformation through the gospel.
We often think that the best way to understand the Bible is to get the help of an aid. We say to ourselves, “I need to get a commentary. I need to get a study Bible. I need to find a good preacher or teacher.” These are wonderful and wise actions to take, but they are not the most fundamental piece of understanding the Bible. They are important and indispensable parts of a robust understanding of the Bible, but they are supplemental. It can be easy to become a commentary junkie. If aids are supplemental, what is foundational to understanding the Bible? My simple argument is that the best way to understand the Bible is to read (and re-read) it for yourself.
This month we are approaching Easter Sunday which we often call Resurrection Sunday, for it is a remembrance of that first Easter Sunday on which Jesus Christ our Lord rose from the grave. While it is good and right for us to celebrate Easter each year, perhaps we also need reminding that every Sunday is a resurrection Sunday. Indeed, each Sunday that we gather is a continued celebration of the Risen King and of our expectation of His return to rule and to reign forevermore.
I love pithy quotes. They ring in the ears in a way that helps us to remember something important. They summarize a truth with brevity and brilliance in such a way that they stick firmly in the mind. In fact, this is one of the reasons that I love C. H. Spurgeon. He was a master of language and always seemed to know how to turn a phrase with ingenuity and acuity. The problem with quotations, especially in the age of social media, is that they are often misattributed.
I recently had a conversion that caused me to reflect on some simple statements that reflect a biblical worldview of wisely using money especially as it relates to obtaining and maintaining financial stability. These 6 statements aren’t all that could be said about money and certainly don’t address a variety of issues that are often part of our financial picture. However, they get at the core elements of wisdom in finances and give folks a starting point towards stewarding what God has given in a faithful way. I'm certainly not saying anything here that hasn’t been said before, but I hope that you find it faithful to the Scripture and helpful to your soul.
“Feeling loved” and “being loved” are not always the same. If a perfect world, we would feel loved when we are being loved, but sin corrupts both our perceptions of love and our displays of love. We can often feel loved without actually being loved. Conversely, we can often be loved without feeling loved. This is the confusion over love and its perversion that erupts in our culture over and over again.
What an odd thing it is that virtues can become vices when misused or misapplied. Of course, this is the story of the history of the world. What God has designed for good, man perverts to evil. Recently, Andy Nesalli has published some great articles on how various virtues can be exercised sinfully if we are not careful to tie them to truth and wisdom. I recommend these articles heartily to you and also to trace down the great compendium of resources that he cites or recommends within each article. Happy reading!
The Puritans have often given us great writings to help us as we walk the pilgrim way of the Christian life. I recently came across a brief passage that encouraged me greatly. Justin Taylor’s blog over at The Gospel Coalition cited the following section from English Puritan William Bridge’s A Lifting Up for the Downcast (Banner of Truth, 61-63). May it lift up your soul today!
Christians are sometimes accused of having a head in the clouds or pie in the sky sort of theology, especially when it comes to the future and our hope of bodily resurrection. A belief in a future, bodily resurrection may seem somewhat impractical to the here and now. How does believing that one day I will raise from the dead make any difference to me today? All theology should inform my head, my heart, and my hands. It should transform what we think, believe, and do in the here and now. To that end, professor and pastor Mitchell Chase has written an excellent short article to help connect the doctrine of the resurrection to this present life and the nature of the local church.
