The Temporary nature of our Suffering.

What holds most people in bondage while they are suffering is the lack of faith that their suffering will someday end. It is fear, and this is justifiable because when we lack clarity, we lack peace of mind. It is the fear of suffering and the fear some experience in suffering that fails to help us see the temporary nature of all suffering for those who have faith. Trying to understand why we suffer sometimes doesn't help, there is that saying that there is always light at the end of the tunnel, and that is why we can hope. In 1 Peter 5:10 it reads, "And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you." Peter reminds the church that we are not in heaven yet, he tells the church to humble themselves and to cast their anxieties on Jesus. He knows that while we are still here we will suffer but promises them that God himself will strengthen them through their trials.

We can take the same comfort that the early church took, knowing that most suffering is temporary. If our suffering leads to death, one day we will be resurrected. If we have to endure trials, we don't endure them alone, God is with us! One day when the Lord redeems this world, which can be a cause of our suffering, we will be redeemed along with it if we are trusting Christ now for salvation. We might think that we are under a curse, but that is not what it says in Galatians 3:13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”). The reason Christ died for us is so that we could be made right in God sight. We don't have to keep the law, Jesus' death redeemed us from the curse of the law, so that anyone who has faith in Jesus can be saved!

All the law does is show us that we are sinners, and we can't save ourselves. It is through the death of the Messiah that we can have our sins forgiven. He was perfect, and he kept the law for us perfectly,so we just need to believe, and we need to believe that some real day our suffering will end. How this will happen is a mystery to be embraced by faith, suffering is real, and yes there are ways we can avoid it. However when we can't avoid it, we can embrace it through faith. We can unite our sufferings with Jesus, and offer it up to God. In this way it can become redemptive, something God uses in our lives to bring us closer to the Lord. This is Mike.

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The Parable of the Ten Virgins.

Matthew 25:1-13 I have discovered a remarkable interpretation of this parable that I would like to share with you. The story in the Bible goes like this: “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish and five were wise. 3 The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. 4 The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. 5 The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. 6 “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ 7 “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ 9 “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy som...

Age of Brokenness.

We are living in an age of brokenness, no matter what age you are, you probably have been touched with relationships falling apart, which causes more and more people to live in isolation. In this generation there is less of an incentive to heal and reconcile relationships, but that doesn’t excuse the amount of people who are broken. Why people don’t seem to be motivated to heal relationships is because our beliefs about faith and God have changed, really giving us less of an incentive to do what our religion says. If I act from my personal beliefs, but the person that I am responding to has abandoned religious beliefs, than the response to my wanting things to be better can be misinterpreted and rejected then by someone else. Generally when a society has expectations about broken relationships, loneliness and isolation, and the beliefs are generally accepted, society becomes a more compassionate society, because all value the same things. When religious values are undermined and ...

The Biblical Meaning of “Life in the Spirit.”

“Life in the Spirit” is an example that the Apostle Paul gives in the book of Romans starting in chapter 5 and going through to chapter 8. He begins by telling us we are justified by faith (5:1), and have gained access by faith into the grace of God (5:2). We have been delivered from God’s wrath (5:9) and we have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son (5:10). He goes on to explain that through Adam all die (5:12), and that the free Gift of God brings justification and righteousness to the believing sinner (5:15-17). Through our conversion we are baptized into Christ and into his death, which frees us from the law and makes us dead to sin (6:2-4). He explains that just as Christ was raised from the dead, we are given new life in Christ (6:4). Our old unregenerate self was crucified with Christ so that our body of sin might be done away with (6:5-6). Because we have died to sin, we now submit ourselves to God being that we are now under grace, not the law (6:8-1...

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