Weekly Devotional 3-30-15 The End Result

Weekly Devotional 3-30-15 The End Result

We have all heard someone ask, why does God allow so much anguish, pain, strife and turmoil in the world? Why doesn’t He intervene and stop all of these things? Being a God of love and compassion how can He allow millions of babies to be aborted? How can He allow young children to be abducted and abused? How can He allow such demon possessed people like those of ISIS to commit the atrocities of enslavement, rape, and murder? Why does He allow missionaries, those who are true followers of Christ, who have obeyed His command to go and preach the gospel throughout the world, to suffer many of these same things? Doesn’t He see, or care? Perhaps you have asked these same questions. I know that at times, I have wondered about many of these things and the only answer that I can come up with is I don’t know the end result of these allowances. I do know that God is truly a God of love. He demonstrated this by sacrificing His only begotten Son to make a propitiation for man’s sin which brought about all of these calamities. What greater love is there than that He would lay down his life for sinful man?

The unregenerate person of course cannot appreciate that God the Son laid down His life for him because he cannot appreciate what that sacrifice made possible; the forgiveness of his sins by Holy God and to give him a right standing before God. They cannot appreciate that there just was no other way that man could be reconciled to God. God accomplished for him what was impossible for man to do. The unregenerate man of course will say, “Why did God allow sin in the first place? He could have prevented it.” Yes, He could have, but then how could God’s love for man be truly appreciated? This after all is what God desires, to love man and to be loved by man.

We Christians on the other hand have come to understand and appreciate God’s love and we have learned to love Him in return. However, man’s love for God would be a shallow love if not measured against the awfulness of sin. Again, the unregenerate will say the things mentioned above are just too terrible a price to pay for man to be able to love God. But, do you really know that my dear Questioner? Do you know what awaits those who have come to love God?

God has promised that He will bring to an end this present experience of life and will usher in a completely new experience. In that experience He will have wiped away every tear from their (our) eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things will have passed away (see Revelation 21:1-4). This of course necessitates that all of the pain and sufferings of this present life will be forgotten, never to be remembered again.

The apostle Paul, who had been beaten with cords by the Jews on five different occasions with thirty nine lashings, had been beaten by rods three times, had been stoned by them, had been ship shipwrecked three times, had been adrift in the deep (the sea) for a night and a day, was on journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of his own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; 27in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness— and besides these things, he was deeply burdened for the churches he had started or had ministered to (See 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 NKJV), yet he could say, “18For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18 NKJV ).

Certainly the anguish, pain, strife and turmoil that each of us suffer is not pleasant, but if it weren’t for them, probably none of us would turn to God for relief. Had God left Adam and Eve in the Garden, after their sin, they would not have understood just what their disobedience had wrought. It was necessary that they experience a cursed earth, that in sorrow they would eat of it all the days of their life, that it would produce thorns and thistles and that only from labor would their sustenance come (Genesis 3:17-19).

Regenerate and unregenerate (believers and unbelievers) will suffer anguish, pain, strife and turmoil to some extent throughout their (our) lives. It is a given. For those who turn to God in repentance of their sin will experience and eternity of bliss, but those who harden their hearts against God, refusing to believe that God loves them and that He wants them to love Him, will be cast out of His presence forever, when they stand before Him in judgment because of their rejection of His love.

God Bless

stevelampman@comcast.net stevelampman.com
Transforming Power; The Work of God on Behalf of Man

www.gbchurch.us www.foundationscounseling.org

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