Suffering is not God’s will for you – Tuesday, 13 March

You can be happy in the midst of a difficult time or a crisis knowing that God is not the one causing your problems. He is the answer to them! Many people have mistakenly blamed God for everything because they think He is in control of everything – but that is not true. If we blame God for our problems how can we run to Him for help?

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
Romans 8:37 ESV

Through Christ, we are more than conquerors, not more than conquered. God is for us not against us, and yet many people wrongly believe that God is the source of all their troubles (Romans 8:31).

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
2 Peter 3:9 KJV

You can’t get it any clearer than this: It is not God’s will for anyone to perish. He wants everyone to experience His abundant life (John 10:10) both in the here-and-now and after they die. All of God’s free gifts (grace) have to be received by faith (Ephesians 2:8). If someone doesn’t receive salvation, they are not saved (Romans 10:9-10) – but God wants all men to be saved. Clearly, God’s will doesn’t automatically come to pass.

“13 “You can enter true life only through the narrow gate. The gate to hell is very wide, and there is plenty of room on the road that leads there. Many people go that way. 14 But the gate that opens the way to true life is narrow. And the road that leads there is hard to follow. Only a few people find it.”
Matthew 7:13-14 ERV

Jesus said that most would enter through the broad gate which leads to destruction instead of the narrow gate that leads to life. This is directly against God’s will. God does not destine people to go to hell and it’s incorrect to say that He allows it. All of us have a free will and we are free to choose life or death, blessing or curses. Salvation must be chosen; received through faith.

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
Romans 8:28 NKJV

God is able to work all things together for our good, but that does not mean all things are from God. He doesn’t cause everything in your life. James 4:7 shows us that some things in life are from God and we should submit to them (otherwise we could miss out) and other things in life are from our enemy the devil and should be resisted (otherwise we will suffer). If we don’t resist the devil and his attacks then he will not flee from us. It’s our God-given responsibility to resist the devil and his attacks.

Sickness is a work of the devil (Acts 10:38) – it is certainly not “abundant life” and it’s not God’s will for us. Neither are tragedies or suffering. You can learn from any tragedy, and God can bring much good out of it – but He never causes our problems. He is the solution to our problems.

You may feel like your suffering is “your cross to bear” – but that’s simply not true. Jesus suffered on the cross for you so that you would not have to suffer. You may feel like “it’s your thorn in your flesh” and that God is trying to teach you something, but that simply isn’t true either. God wants to use His Word to teach you and perfect you (2 Timothy 3:16-17) not hard knocks. Paul’s thorn (suffering) wasn’t a sickness but persecution (we’re redeemed from sickness, but not from persecution [2 Timothy 3:12]). You may feel like a modern-day Job, who is experiencing extreme suffering and losing everything because God allows it – but that is not the case! Job was alive long before the cross. He was not redeemed. Identifying with Job rather than seeing yourself in Christ is a misunderstanding of Scripture and it’s wrong.

Just because you are struggling to see your healing or the answer to your suffering doesn’t mean that God is withholding your answer and it doesn’t mean that He wants you to suffer a little more – never! God is not withholding what He has already freely provided for you through Jesus.