Because of Faith in God
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The Prosperity Gospel says you are to “name it and claim it” in regards to our personal desires for wealth, health, and happiness. Believers are entitled only to experience good things and that suffering is incompatible with Christian faith. As a result, if one suffers at the hands of others or even from sickness, it is because faith is lacking. If we had more faith, we would not suffer. Is suffering a sign of divine disapproval from God?
According to Job’s friends, God punishes “those who plow injustice and those who sow trouble reap the same” (Job 4:8). But what about those who do neither, like Job? We have a tendency to blame victims, who suffer iniquity, when there is none to be found. This was Job’s experience. “He was a man of perfect integrity, who feared God and turned away from evil” God says in Job 1:1, 8, 2:3. Job was blessed by God with immense wealth and status. He had seven sons and three daughters. His holdings included 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys and a very large number of servants (Job 1:2-3). Satan makes the accusation against God that what does Job have to fear? Why would he not have perfect integrity because you provide and bless everything he lays his hands to (Job 1:9-11; 2:4-5).
Everybody would be people of perfect integrity towards God, if God blessed us with wealth, health, family and security. True or false?
Do children have perfect integrity towards God? Job did not think so, and that is why his regular practice was to purify his children and offer burnt offerings to God for all of them, in case they sinned against God, losing their integrity (Job 1:5). Notice, Job offered burnt offerings for his children, his children did not do this; they were busy partying (Job 1:4-5). And this is all happening in a pastor’s home! Job is the priest of his family, offering sacrifices like Abraham, Issac and Jacob.
So, as a result, of Job’s lack of integrity, he is allowed to be tested and afflicted, by Satan, on God’s allowance (Job 1:12-19; 2:6-10). No, because of his perfect integrity, Satan is allowed to test and afflict Job. Job loses his wealth, health, status and family. The verdict? Job is sinful, not a man of integrity. Suffering, lose and pain is a result of one’s sin against God; being unrighteous. His wife even casts a stone of judgment at her husband, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9).
What is integrity? This seems to be the center of Job’s world-”to be complete before God”. According to the Scripture, to be a person of perfect integrity is to fear God and turn away from evil (Job. 1:1). To fear God is to lay the life of your only son on the altar as God asks (Abraham, Gen. 22:12). To fear God is to march around the walls of Jericho, blowing your horn, for seven days, in belief that the walls will come down as God has said (Joshua 6). To fear god is to obey Him in light of a fearful king, plague or disease (Jeremiah 42:11; Ex. 11:1-12:13; Mk. 16:17-18).
And these signs will accompany those who believe: In My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new languages; they will pick up snakes; if they should drink anything deadly, it will never harm them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will get well.”
To turn away from evil is to run and repent from all that is morally and ethically disagreeable, unwholesome and harmful in the light of God. It is to follow Jesus and do as He did. Take our cues from the apostles and the great men and women of The Faith (Hebrews 11). A complete person, therefore, is one who fears God and turns away from evil. Am I a complete person? Do I deserve the same blessings as Job? If so, I will receive the same testings as well. A complete person should expect adversity. As Job says, in response to his wife’s judgment (Job 2:10),
“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” Throughout all this Job did not sin in what he said.
So, is suffering a sign of the divine disapproval of God? No. Is suffering incompatible with the Christian faith? No, we follow our Savior King, who suffered for His Father, in doing His will, redeeming men and women to life, by dying on a cross for our sin. So, if we had more faith, we would not suffer? Absolutely not, we would suffer more. The sons of thunder, James and John, request to sit at Jesus’ right and left, the places of power in His Kingdom, Jesus speaks these words (Mk 10:36-40),
Mark 10:36–40 (HCSB)
“What do you want Me to do for you?” He asked them. They answered Him, “Allow us to sit at Your right and at Your left in Your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you’re asking. Are you able to drink the cup I drink or to be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” “We are able,” they told Him. Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink, and you will be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with. But to sit at My right or left is not Mine to give; instead, it is for those it has been prepared for.”
James and John, as well as all believers and followers of Jesus, will drink the cup that Jesus drank, and be baptized with the same baptism that He was…suffering. There is no Christian faith without suffering. No following Jesus without suffering. In fact, because of our faith, and being faithful to Jesus, we suffer and will suffer. One’s faith is to blame for one’s suffering, not because of a lack of it. When we receive God from good, it likely will be clothed in adversity and affliction. What we learn and how we respond to the affliction matters most. How did Job respond?
Throughout all this Job did not sin or blame God for anything.
How is that possible? Because Job was a complete man who feared God and turned away from evil. Job knew that God is good, not evil. To blame God is to say God is evil. Do we believe that God is evil?
The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and great in faithful love. The Lord is good to everyone; His compassion rests on all He has made.
The Lord is good and upright; therefore He shows sinners the way.
Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the man who takes refuge in Him!
“Why do you call Me good?” Jesus asked him. “No one is good but One—God.
Every generous act and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights; with Him there is no variation or shadow cast by turning.
Did Job suffer because he lacked faith in God? Absolutely not. Was he surprised when this fiery ordeal of testing came upon Him? Maybe, but I think not, because his response to his wife says otherwise, “Should we only accept good from God and not adversity” (Job 2:10). The Apostle Peter says,
Dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you as if something unusual were happening to you. Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of the Messiah, so that you may also rejoice with great joy at the revelation of His glory.
So those who suffer according to God’s will should, while doing what is good, entrust themselves to a faithful Creator.
The word “happening’ or “happen” is important because it means “to go together”. Persecution and trials, suffering and affliction, do not just “happen” in the sense of being accidents. They are a part of God’s plan, and He is in control (W. Weirsbe, BE Commentary, Vol 2, p.424). Because one chooses to bear the name of Christ, be faithful to God, and stand up for what is right, the world will attack that one, Satan will use them, because they do not know God, nor His ways.
Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will also keep yours. But they will do all these things to you on account of My name, because they don’t know the One who sent Me.
So, when the world attacks, and we suffer, rejoice! For you are deemed worthy and are being faithful to Christ! Glory God with the name ‘Christian’ -”a Christ one, belonging to Christ”. Christian does not mean prosperity of health, wealth and happiness if you “name it, you will claim it”. If we believe this, one is not reading the Bible, one does not know God’s Word.
Suffering does not mean wrong doing or divine discipline (other than my own devices and will). The trial of faith today is the assurance of glory when Jesus returns.
You rejoice in this, though now for a short time you have had to struggle in various trials so that the genuineness of your faith —more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire —may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. You love Him, though you have not seen Him. And though not seeing Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy,
God is not going to replace suffering with glory, rather He will transform suffering into glory. We see this fact with what Jesus accomplished on the Cross. Jesus’ suffering was turned into His glorification and our redemption to Glory. His glorification only happend though as He, Jesus, entrusted Himself to the Father.
And Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into Your hands I entrust My spirit.” Saying this, He breathed His last.
So those who suffer according to God’s will should, while doing what is good, entrust themselves to a faithful Creator.
To entrust oneself to God is “to give in charge”, “to commit”, to lay myself in God’s hands. To lay oneself in God’s hands is to give up our will for His. Those who suffer “according to God’s will” does not mean that God wants us to suffer; but that we will suffer because we do God’s will.
Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, equip yourselves also with the same resolve —because the one who suffered in the flesh has finished with sin — in order to live the remaining time in the flesh, no longer for human desires, but for God’s will.
With suffering comes the blessing of the Holy Spirit and God rests upon you. Suffering is expected when we are doing God’s will. Entrust oneself to God and He will lift you up (James 4:10).
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your care on Him, because He cares about you.
Christian’s suffer because we are faithful to God’s will, not faithless.