You
may be thinking, OK, that was fine for Job, but how about my situation? It may
surprise you to know that even for the person who has accepted Jesus'
forgiveness and trusts in His promise of eternal life, that pain and suffering
are not removed or taken away. In fact, as believers, we're told to expect it!
For
example, in the same book and chapter (Romans 8) that the Apostle Paul writes
about God working all things together for good, he also writes this to those
trusting in Jesus:
“Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you
have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you
live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you
put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. For all who are
led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit
that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God's Spirit when he
adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, 'Abba, Father." For his
Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children. And since we
are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs
of God's glory. But if we are to share
his glory, we must also share his suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing
compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is
waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children
really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse. But
with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's
children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation
has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we
have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for
our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope
for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children,
including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we
were saved.
(If
we already have something, we don't need to hope for it. But if we look forward
to something we don't yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)
(Romans chapter 8, verses 12-25 New Living Translation)
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