4 pages of notes, one pen, the blogger, and God's lesson.
Sis. Stephanie is very boring, and its a lot of power points and points, but its worth it if you manage to get everything down cause she defines everything and details it all.
So I have a lot of points to go through, will try not to talk to much.
Suffering - Do Christians Suffer?
Definition of suffering :
- To experience harm or loss
- To undergo punishment or be executed
- Lastly, a definition that is not in the dictionary and is an obsolete definition.
To endure patiently, a Christian definition.
What Does The Bible Say About Suffering?
- It's part of a human life, and only humans can experience it. God doesn't experience our suffering, because He is God, He is perfect.
This shows us how much God being perfect, sent Jesus to become human to experience our suffering. From being God to human, Jesus lived a life that experienced it all just because He loves us dearly. We see how big and how wide and how deep God's love is for us.
3 Types of Suffering.
1. Punitive/retributive suffering = When you receive punishment for your mistakes or sin.
God doesn't let bad things fall on us for punishment, He loves us and does not do that. But He allows these things to happen to us so that we may grow in faith and learn to trust Him more.
Examples in the Bible of punitive suffering are like..
Adam & Eve, because of their mistake/sin, man had to toil for a living, women had to experience child birth, and they were driven out of Eden.
Another example is Israel in Exile.
For at least 10+ books in the Bible, if you know the history of the Bible well, it shows how Israel, over and over again, failed to obey God and His commandments. Its really had breaking to see how they kept on falling short or walked away from God's road.
They sinned, and God let them be taken into exile that they may turn back to Him.
Sadly they did, but they sinned over and over again. Learn from this, stay faithful to God, He is always wanting us to return to Him and to stay by His side.
2. Innocent suffering = Suffering you don't deserve.
A very simple and known example to this is in the book of Job.
Job suffered innocently. His life was torn apart, everything was taken away from him, his children, his slaves, and everything he owned. He didn't deserve it but it was all in the plan to bring glory to God. (God showed Satan that even though he made Job suffer, Job didn't blame God but trusted in Him more.)
Another example is Paul's ministry. He shared the Gospel saving so many people, but he had to suffer many types of sufferings, whippings, jail, prison, shipwrecks, stoned, persecution, riots, and even death, twice. (Once he died by being stoned to death but God raised him back to life, Paul got up and went back into the town that stoned him and started preaching again.)
We live in a time where we get a lot of suffering we don't deserve but don't be depressed or saddened by it, because God knows, Jesus felt it, and He has a plan for you and will help you.
3. Redemptive Suffering = Both punitive & innocent suffering can be changed as you are refined by it or for the good of some one else.
Meaning... Punitive suffering can change you to be a better Christian with stronger faith in God, like you learn something new, like reading this post =) or just seeing everything in a different perspective.
Innocent suffering that maybe your suffering but it can help others, so even if your suffering right now, God might be using you to help others or molding you.
Examples from the Bible ..
Joseph - Isolated from his family but became the Pharaoh of Egypt that ended up saving his own family and started the people of God.
Moses - Unappreciated leader, Moses lead the people, he followed them, he suffered with them but they didn't give him the respect nor appreciation he deserved. But he lead them to the Promise Land.
Jeremiah a.k.a. the Weeping Prophet - During and before the time of Israel's exile by the Babylonians. He tried to get the people to change, he tried to save them, but they did not listen but he still suffered with them so that he may at least save he few. He died in a far of country with some wandering Israelites.
Paul - Prisoner for the Gospel, I already explained.
Jesus - Suffered for us, His love and mercy is too great to comprehend. He died for our sins, so that we may be saved.
Our types of sufferings :
Sickness
Oppression
Persecution
Unrealized hope
Need
Sidenote* Still have 2 pages more :D
We now know what suffering means and the types of suffering we can go through.
So if we suffer,
Does God Suffer?
Yes, God does suffer but He suffers because we sin.
He suffers in.. sorrow for us, disappointment, and grief.
Examples from the Bible :
Genesis 3:8-24 Adam & Eve's sin
2 Peter 2:4 Angels rebelled against God
Genesis 6:5-6 The Flood
Nehemiah 9;20, Psalm 78:10,40, Isaiah 63:10, when Israel wandered in the wilderness.
They complained, even though God feed them, gave them water, manna to eat, birds to eat, clothes that they wore from Egypt that did not wore down.
I'm tired 12plus dy gonna continue this tml, let people read until here first. =)
Change of plans I'll make it into 2 parts!
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