Originally posted by 667joe
I am talking about evil, which includes more than sins. For example, why would a perfectly good person get cancer and have to suffer?
If you love God, He has the uncanny power and ability to cause all things to work together for good.
We can consecrate all our misfortunes to God's transcendent sovereign ability to cause "
all things" to work towards our good.
No one born in the world can avoid troubles. If in faith in Christ we lay all our situations and circumstances before God in trust, He will work them out to wrought the precious personality of Jesus into our personality. And that is the only precious thing we can take into the next age.
That is the Christ worked into our soul.
So the man of faith exercises to place both the good and the bad at God's feet, so to speak, that He may cause
"all things to work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose." (Rom. 8:28)
Why do you think we are told the story of
Jacob?
Why do you think we are told of the story of
Joseph?
The lives of
Moses, Rehab, Ruth, David ... and many others stand as testimonies to God's ability to engineer their circumstances (including their failures) into blessing, because they loved God.
While we should not hunt out and look for troubles, we can trust God with praise and thanksgiving in the troubles that are often unavoidable. He can make all things work together for good to them that love God.
God either allows it, or god doesn't. If god allows it, is he not evil if he could have prevented it? If you saw a blind person crossing the street with a car approaching and you did nothing about it when you could have intervened, would you not be evil? It is clear that if there is a god, he is very, very evil.
I think you can take the path of life's absurdity and dispair or you can take the path of trust in the God who causes all things to work together for good to them that love Him.
That is a decision you have to sit down and decide for yourself.
I have looked at the crucified Son of God, and decided the great blessing that came out of that tragedy certifies that God is able to cause all things to work together for good to them that love Him.
The Bible concludes with a city built with precious stones. This symbol means that all those who put their faith in God come out as transformed "gems" of divine life for the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose.
Symbolically, the heat, pressure, and flowing water deep in the earth turned out precious gems for the building up of God's house.
"The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every precious stone;
the first foundation was jasper;
the second, sapphire,
the third, chalcedony;
the fourth, emerald;
the fifth, sardonyx;
the sixth, sardius;
the seventh, chrysolite;
the eighth, beryl;
the ninth, topaz;
the tenth, chrysoprase;
the eleventh, jacinth;
the twelth, amethyst." (Rev. 21:19)
These gems are all transparent and shinny precious. They symbolize the redeemed believers transformed into people through whom the Triune God can shine through in clearest radiance.
If you are saved, you will still be you, 667joe. But you will be
transparent and the divine life of God will be radiating from you.
What pressure, heat, weight of situations and circumstances upon you God uses in conjunction with the flowing water of His Spirit through you, to transform you into a son of God. All the sons are built up into a corporate expression of God in man.
So Paul says that the momentarily lightness of affliction is preparing for the lovers of Christ an eternal weight of glory.
2 Corinthians 4:17
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,