The Pain Olympics

"You just don't understand what I've been through" is a common response from those who reject to believe that God loves them and has a purpose and plan for their lives. Why can't we often see past our own pain to see the truth of God's word? Is our human suffering any greater than God's? The way people try to compare sufferings is like they are competing in a "pain Olympics" that there are awards for gold, silver, and bronze for who has the worst pain. So who would God says has the worst pain?

Is it the young woman who was sexually molested by her father when she was a child?

Is it the loving husband whose wife left him for another man?

Is it parents who lost their child in a car accident or that child killed themselves?

Is it a 25 year old, physically fit, executive diagnosed with a rare cancer whose life completely changes to where she is now not able to work and is completely dependent on others?

Is it a 9 year old boy who is kidnapped from his home and sold into sex trafficking? 

Whose pain is worse?

Is their pain relevant to the Gospel of Christ?  This is where most will stop listening and turn away in an angry, severely offended, condemning manner saying things like, "How can you disregard their suffering" or "You are belittling their situations".

As Christians, are we to be concerned about hurting people's feelings or saving their soul?
Did Jesus placate those following Him, was He worried about hurting their feelings? I will proclaim that Jesus did not care one bit about their "feelings", He often told them to STOP depending on their feelings and instead to THINK/BELIEVE the truth, irregardless of their situations:

"Which of you by worrying can make themselves 1-inch taller? " Matthew 6:27, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble" Matthew 6:34.

"Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it" Luke 17:33

"And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell. "  Matthew 10:28.

Isaiah 41:10 ESV / 

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV / 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

  Not once in the entire Bible does God ever applaud feelings, give a pass for feelings because of horrific circumstances, or make statements like, "I understand how you feel".  Time and time again He would say, "Why are you feeling that way?", for example, in 1 Kings Chapter 19,  when the prophet Elijah had just demonstrated God's awesome power against the evil prophets of Jezebel, he had them all killed, Jezebel threatened to kill him and Elijah got scared and ran away.  did God respond to him and say "I understand Elijah, why you are feeling sad and alone, Jezebel is trying to kill you, and you have done nothing wrong".


Who gets the gold medal for the worst pain ever?

He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised and we did not esteem Him.  Surely He has taken up our pain and carried our sufferings;  Yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by Him and afflicted, But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for out iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was put upon Him and by His stripes we are healed...And The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:3-6

Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, died that the ungrateful, wicked, hypocritical, sinful man could live. God did not ask us to change first, He offered Himself first.  The pain that He must go through since the beginning that His creation rebelled against Him is unimaginable, that no matter how good He treats His creation, we still reject Him.  "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" Matthew 23:37.  But thank God, that because of His benevolence, we do not get what we deserve. His love for us is so amazing that He can love us in spite of our sin and rejection of Him!

Pain and suffering are part of the human condition because of sin. This earth and humankind are cursed and until that curse is lifted, all kinds of tragedies will continue to happen to us.  Yes, some sufferings are worse than others, but no human suffering can compare to God's.  

The consequences of suffering from a humanistic view point ends in nothing but futility, a wasted, useless life.
The consequences of suffering in God's kingdom is that God can make ANY situation work out for our good to those who love Him and are called (and accept that call) according to his purpose. Romans 8:28.

There is going to be a Day of Judgment, and God will judge everyone who has ever lived, His wrath is going to poured out on all the wicked and ungodly. The eyes of the unrepentant wicked need to be opened and the ears unplugged so they can see and hear the truth.  The Good News  is Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, born of a virgin; Jesus lived and died but He rose from Dead, and now offers anyone who will believe in Him Salvation.  Salvation is a free gift from God, anyone who will believes in the shed blood of the risen Savior, Jesus, will know and have a real relationship with the true God.  You can't work for it or buy because the price has already been paid with the Blood of Jesus Christ and  Believing in Jesus gets us into the Kingdom of God and saves us from the righteous wrath of God.  But that is not all, He gives us a new heart and mind NOW, and we receive some of His blessing from heaven NOW and are equipped to be able to live a life that is holy and acceptable to Him NOW. (Romans 6:9; 10:9-13, Ephesians 2:8, Isaiah 7:14, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19). 

1. Believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is real, He lived and died and rose from the grave. (Romans 10:9-10)

2. Believe that you are a sinner, repent-turn from your sins and realize and accept you need Jesus. (Mark 1:15, Matthew 4:17, Acts 3:19)

3. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is your Lord and God. (Romans 10:9)

4. Find a local Bible preaching church that does obey the commandment for water baptism for the remission of your sins and to identify yourself with Christ. (Acts 16:31)

This is just the first step to a lifelong journey of growing in truth and love with the God who created this earth and everything in it, including every human being that has ever lived.

Bible verses related to this post:  1 Kings Chapter 19; Isaiah 53:3-6; Matthew 23:27; Romans 8:28; Isaiah 41:10; Proverbs 3:5-6; Matthew 10:28;Matthew 6:27;Matthew 6:34; Luke 17:33
References:  biblehub.com

God Did Not Bring You This Far To Leave You

God's mercies and compassions are new every morning.

Life is hard.  To those without a saving faith in Jesus Christ, there is one saying that sums up the total of their purpose on this earth, "Life sucks and then you die".  But the belief of the true Christian should be completely opposite of a hopeless life and then hopeless death. Jesus did not come to earth so that His followers could continue to live as if they have no hope.  Jesus came and died to give all His people life and not just a hum-drum, pessimistic, 'oh woo is me' kind of life; no Jesus came to give us an abundant,  joyful, peaceful, secure, and blessed kind of life. Now His idea of joy and a worldly view of joy is drastically different.  The world's joy is "eat, meet, and be merry", they get their joy from material things, from artificial and temporary things.  The problem with worldly things is they don't last.  You eat that delicious meal with all the fixings, but as it goes down into the digestive track it turns into dirty nasty refuse; that double meat cheese burger with all the extra fixings with a side of extra large chili fries and a large chocolate milk shake, it all goes down well, but the going out of all that food is a different story. That is how sin is.  It's good going down, but what comes out is broken down feces.  Sorry to use such an illustration, but I want to bring home the sharp contrast of holiness versus worldliness. The temporary things are just that, temporary, they don't last, you eat one meal but you will have eat another, even if it was the best tasting most expensive meal, it still goes and comes out the same, regardless if you spent $5 dollars or $1000 a plate. That points to the absolute silliness of depending on worldly things knowing that at the end of day, they don't matter; when you die, it won't matter that you lived in a 50 bed room mansion and had 10 cars in the garage, or had millions of fans or that you were homeless with the sky for your ceiling and the dirt and a rock for your bed and pillow.  If your name is not written in the Lamb's Book of Life, it does not matter whether you were rich or poor,  the life you spend on 'dining' and 'living' in the world's system will come out in the end to total destruction, your soul will be 'flushed' down the eternal 'toilet' of hell. 

Here is what survey takers say that a majority of people think about 'Christians' today: "Christians are bigots" "Christians are hypocrites" "Christians are self righteous"  "Christians are racists"  "Christians are out of touch with reality" "Christians are stupid"  "Why should I follow Christians, they can't even get along within themselves"
Numerous studies are done on human behavior, one study that really stood out to me was a study I heard about from a sermon on Bible School Radio, the pastor talked about this survey and it was pretty disheartening.  The study was on customer service in restaurants from the worker's point of view.  One of the questions asked of the waiters, 'what was the worst part of their job?', the common answer was the waiters hated Sundays, that the 'church' people were the worst customers, the most rude, and were the cheapest tippers.  What kind of sermon did these 'church' people listen to?  Where in the Bible does it say that God's people are to act this way?  Well the Bible does talk about 'unsaved' people who act like this:

• Brother against brother
• They lie and cheat
• They are thieves and murderers 
• They are fornicators and adulterers and homosexuals and sodomites
• They are covetous, jealous
• They are drunkards and revilers
• They are extortioners
• The are witches, and those who consort with all occult practices
• They are fearful and cowardly
• They are hateful, selfish, and prideful
• They think they are serving 'God' but they are really serving devils.

Jesus said that real Christians will be known by their love, not their hate.  Jesus also said that the world will hate and persecute His true followers.  

ALL WHO DESIRE TO LIVE GODLY, IN CHRIST JESUS WILL SUFFER PERSECUTION.

Why I am talking about being a real Christian?  Because it needs it needs to be crystal clear, the promises of God are for His people and His people alone. God says that if we will diligently obey His voice, to observe carefully all His commandments, He promises to bestow all of His blessings on those who will believe and obey. Now there are some differences between the old testament blessings under the Mosaic covenant and the New Covenant established in Jesus's blood, but the issue of receiving God's blessings are way greater than anything the world has to offer no matter if it's the old or new.  Some things did not change in the New Covenant, like, God will never leave us or forsake us;  that with God ANYTHING is possible; that with God we have NOTHING to fear.  "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear, What can man do to me?" Hebrews 13:6; that we are not to trust in ourselves but completely in the Lord- "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and trust not in your own understanding." Proverbs 3:5 and Matthew 6:33. Christians can have 'the peace that passes all understanding' NOW, not in some future state.  The blessings of God are not for those who reject Him and His laws, period.  The wages of sin is death, that means if you are an unrepentant sinner, the work you do in the flesh-sin- what you get paid back with is death/curses, not life and blessings. "The ungodly shall not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous...but the way of the ungodly shall perish." Psalm 1: 4-6.   That is why it is so ridiculous to think that God will bless us when we are living contrary to His word. Now, we can't 'earn' our blessings from God, they are His gift to us, we have to have faith to take what He is giving us. We are to obey God's commands because we want to, not because we have to, and God's gives us the ability to obey as we should because it is impossible to live the holy and totally opposite way of the world without the help of the Holy Spirit. It is God who makes us complete "in every good work to do His will, working in us what is well pleasing in His sight, though Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever, Amen." Hebrews 13:21; 

So, if you have the Holy Spirit of God, we don't despair like the lost thinking, "life sucks and then we die". "The fool has said in his heart, there is no God"-Psalm 41:1, It is foolish to disbelieve. Christians have a better promise that we can depend and live on and base our very life on. Jesus tells us, instructs us, "we do not live on bread alone, but every word that comes from the mouth of God." Matthew 4:4.   "Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance."Psalm 42:5.  Jesus promises His people that, "...I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also" and "Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb" and "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain...HE WHO OVERCOMES SHALL INHERIT ALL THINGS AND I WILL BE HIS GOD AND HE SHALL BE MY SON." Revelation 19:6-9 & Revelation 21:4-7.

I will end with God's call to all those who will pick up their cross and follow His Son, Jesus Christ:

Mary Mary's Song "Can't Give Up Now"

There is going to be a Day of Judgment, and God will judge everyone who has ever lived, His wrath is going to poured out on all the wicked and ungodly. The eyes of the unrepentant wicked need to be opened and the ears unplugged so they can see and hear the truth.  The Good News  is Salvation is a free gift from God, you can't work for it or buy because the price has already been paid with the Blood of Jesus Christ. and  Believing in Jesus saves us from the righteous wrath of God. But that is not all, He gives us a new heart and mind NOW, and we receive some of His blessing from heaven NOW and are equipped to be able to live a life that is holy and acceptable to Him NOW.
1. Believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is real, He lived and died and rose from the grave.
2. Believe that you are a sinner, repent-turn from your sins and realize and accept you need Jesus.
3. Confess that Jesus is your Lord and God
4. Find a local Bible preaching church that does obey the commandment for water baptism for the remission of your sins and to identify yourself with Christ.
This is just the first step to a lifelong journey of growing in truth and love with the God who created this earth and everything in it, including every human being that has ever lived.

Bible verses related to this post: 1 Corinthians Chapter 6, Revelation 12:11,  Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy Chapter 28; Psalm 42:5; 2 Timothy 3:2-4; Romans 1:29; Psalm 14:1; Matthew 19:26; Psalm 34:18; Psalm 30:5; Philippians 4:12-13; 1 Corinthians 4:8-12; 2 Corinthians 4:8-12; 2 Corinthians 6:5-6; Job 13:15; Romans 8:38-39; Matthew 5:10; Psalm 118:8-9; Hebrews 13:5-6; Romans 6:23; Matthew 6:33 & Proverb 3:5; Psalm 1: 4-6;Hebrews 13:21; John 15:18; 2 Timothy 3:12; John 14:3; Revelation 19:6-9 & Revelation 21:4-7; Philippians 4:7
references: unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks of Christianity by David Kinnaman.;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/10/sundays-are-the-worst-christian-tipping_n_4934418.html