What if God gave you a life of suffering so he could bless you eternally?

Job3315

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Or showing that your point is not a Biblical point.
If I didn’t have so many revelations, visitations and experiences with the Lord I’d agree with you. What I am telling you is not from my own interpretation of the Bible, but because I’ve experienced it first hand. I used to believe we were supposed to “be good” until we went to Heaven. That we needed to pray God wouldn't be mad at us on our bad days, but then He showed me who I am in the beloved and how powerful we are. Am I really being anti-biblical? What have I said that in your opinion is not Biblical?

When I do something wrong, or believe something wrong, the Lord is the first one to show up in my dreams and teach me what is going on. He shows me the truth and then I repent and learn. I know what it is to be in the supermarket and hear the Spirit say, “pray” and when I look up, theres a sick person who needs healing. I know what it is to knock on an unknown persons door to deliver a message from the Lord. I doubt the devil is interesting in restoring/helping, so it must be coming from God.

I know I can’t make others see what I see, it’s like me going to a birthday party. I can tell you al about it, but you just have to be there to experience it yourself. All I am trying to say is, that maybe, MAYBE, there’s something else we are not seeing about who God really is and who we are in Him and we ahould ask for more wisdom and revelation.
 
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Clare73

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If I didn’t have so many revelations, visitations and experiences with the Lord I’d agree with you. What I am telling you is not from my own interpretation of the Bible, but because I’ve experienced it first hand. I used to believe we were supposed to “be good” until we went to Heaven. That we needed to pray God wouldn't be mad at us on our bad days, but then He showed me who I am in the beloved and how powerful we are. Am I really being anti-biblical? What have I said that in your opinion is not Biblical?

When I do something wrong, or believe something wrong, the Lord is the first one to show up in my dreams and teach me what is going on. He shows me the truth and then I repent and learn. I know what it is to be in the supermarket and hear the Spirit say, “pray” and when I look up, theres a sick person who needs healing. I know what it is to knock on an unknown persons door to deliver a message from the Lord. I doubt the devil is interesting in restoring/helping, so it must be coming from God.

I know I can’t make others see what I see, it’s like me going to a birthday party. I can tell you al about it, but you just have to be there to experience it yourself. All I am trying to say is, that maybe, MAYBE, there’s something else we are not seeing about who God really is and who we are in Him and we ahould ask for more wisdom and revelation.
I do not even begin to question your experiences with God.

But I more than question, I state that your personal notions of the nature, character, and purposes of God is not Biblical.
 
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TedT

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Please consider:
all suffering is due to sin. All pain is an encouragement for us to seek righteousness in HIS name, Heb 12:5-11. No innocents are sown into the world and so no innocents ever suffer or die.

Death / suffering is the wages of sin, not of life. Death / suffering is the proof of sinfulness. No sin then no pain, suffering or death. Do the holy elect angels suffer or die? Not in the least!

What is the disvalue of the least sin? There can be no real least sin because all sin has an equal and ultimate disvalue to GOD. In an elect the least sin puts Christ on the cross. In a non-elect reprobate, the least sin puts them into the outer darkness. All responses to sin proceed from who is sinning and what their eternal relationship is to GOD - not from the disvalue of their worst sin.
 
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Clare73

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Please consider:
all suffering is due to sin. All pain is an encouragement for us to seek righteousness in HIS name, Heb 12:5-11.
No innocents are sown into the world and so no innocents ever suffer or die.
And since no innocents are sown into the world (Ro 5:19), all are guilty and condemned by God (Ro 5:18), the only remedy being faith and trust in the person and work of Jesus Christ, making rejection of him the determinative sin.

Death / suffering is the wages of sin, not of life. Death / suffering is the proof of sinfulness. No sin then no pain, suffering or death. Do the holy elect angels suffer or die? Not in the least!

What is the disvalue of the least sin? There can be no real least sin because all sin has an equal and ultimate disvalue to GOD. In an elect the least sin puts Christ on the cross. In a non-elect reprobate, the least sin puts them into the outer darkness. All responses to sin proceed from who is sinning and what their eternal relationship is to GOD - not from the disvalue of their worst sin.
 
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Strong in Him

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Some might say well couldn't he have just given you the blessing without the suffering? The answer is yes but if he blesses you eternally after you have suffered for a lifetime then that blessing means so much more than if you have always had it good.

I see this in my life because God could have put me in a family where we have everything and life is as good as it gets but he wanted to give me the best he had and that meant enduring a life of poverty and severe illness. And I thank him for blessing me with knowing true pain and suffering so I could know true joy and happiness.

God doesn't send suffering. He can certainly work for good in it and use it for his glory, but it's neither a blessing nor a punishment.

It sounds as though you have a very positive attitude towards things, but I'd be nervous of a God whose "best" for someone was poverty and pain. I learned lots through having M.E and, now that I don't have it, can see the good things that from that time - but God didn't send me 18 years of sickness just so that I might learn happiness.
 
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Bruce Leiter

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Some might say well couldn't he have just given you the blessing without the suffering? The answer is yes but if he blesses you eternally after you have suffered for a lifetime then that blessing means so much more than if you have always had it good.

I see this in my life because God could have put me in a family where we have everything and life is as good as it gets but he wanted to give me the best he had and that meant enduring a life of poverty and severe illness. And I thank him for blessing me with knowing true pain and suffering so I could know true joy and happiness.

Your experience is a little like mine. I would rather say that God allowed me to have three kinds of physical pain for three and a half decades instead of saying that he gave it to me. The reason is that my pain resulted from an extreme, major depression that I had for 7 years. God cured me of my depression for these many years, but he left my pain, which is like Paul's "thorn in the flesh." Instead, thirtenn years later, he gave me his peace of Philippians 4:6-7, overcame the suffering of pain, and enabled me to accept it as my pain instead of the pain as if it were an enemy.

He gave those results along with constant prayer; recognition that I'm very weak and that he's very strong; and prayers for his strength through Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection. I don't remember what it was like to be pain-free and don't want to lose my pain. Yet, at the same time, I do look forward to the time when we will have "no more pain."
 
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Job3315

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all suffering is due to sin

john 9:2-3 doesn't say that. In this case, the man was born blind for the works of the Father be manifested. Job also suffered, but not because he sinned, but because he was being tested. Yet in other instances people were sick because of demonic oppression, personal sin, sins of other generations, etc. What’s important is find the root, why it is happening and then apply the solution; repent, pray, declare, forgive, receive love, exercise, etc. We must learn to hear His voice and then act upon it.
 
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TedT

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And since no innocents are sown into the world (Ro 5:19), all are guilty and condemned by God (Ro 5:18), the only remedy being faith....
I agree with the concLusion but did you know that the word MADE in
Romans 5:19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were MADE sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. can be translated both as make or to show to be... So the verse may in fact read: For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were shown to be sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be MADE righteous. In other words, by being born into Adam we were NOT CREATED AS SINNERS but shown to be sinners already though in Christ we are RECREATED as righteous. The words do allow this translation and interpretation of meaning though orthodox doctrine denies it, sigh.
 
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Clare73

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I agree with the concLusion but did you know that the word MADE in
Romans 5:19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were MADE sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. can be translated both as make or to show to be... So the verse may in fact read: For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were shown to be sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be MADE righteous. In other words, by being born into Adam we were NOT CREATED AS SINNERS but shown to be sinners already
And the soteriological difference?

And the implication for one's human origin?

though in Christ we are RECREATED as righteous. The words do allow this translation and interpretation of meaning though orthodox doctrine denies it, sigh.
 
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TedT

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God doesn't send suffering. He can certainly work for good in it and use it for his glory, but it's neither a blessing nor a punishment.
Will you explain Heb 12:5-11 to me then?
and
Luke 13:4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them--do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?
 
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Mark Quayle

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Some might say well couldn't he have just given you the blessing without the suffering? The answer is yes but if he blesses you eternally after you have suffered for a lifetime then that blessing means so much more than if you have always had it good.

I see this in my life because God could have put me in a family where we have everything and life is as good as it gets but he wanted to give me the best he had and that meant enduring a life of poverty and severe illness. And I thank him for blessing me with knowing true pain and suffering so I could know true joy and happiness.
I mean you no disrespect or disparagement when I say there is more to it than that --that is, that the result of your suffering has more to do with the indivual you are in Heaven and the "spot" you occupy in the Dwelling Place of God --The Bride of Christ than it does simple rewards/ blessings. In a way it is wrong to say what I just did, because those blessings are in every way related to who you are in Christ, 'after' we see him as he is.

Everything there is different, though. What we might seek after during this life as reward there, will most likely have everything to do with satisfaction with God and each other --not quite like money we never had here, not quite simply the legs or sight we never had here, not just painlessness or lack of suffering we so desired, but the REAL thing --God himself as our very essence, always new, always full of joy, always satisfying, AND as our very desire. I could go on, but the riddle only gets more complex and I have not even nearly figured it out!

To my thinking it puts a whole new aspect to such passages as the beautitudes, the supposedly symbolic language of Revelation, the poetry of Psalms and so on. God is AMAZING.
 
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TedT

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john 9:2-3 doesn't say that. In this case, the man was born blind for the works of the Father be manifested. Job also suffered, but not because he sinned, but because he was being tested.

John does NOT say the man was being punished for sin but that his malady would be cured for the glory of GOD in that curing a man born blind was considered to be a miracle only the Messiah could do. This answer does not deny that his suffering was not due to sin but only that his suffering for sin was used to glorify GOD.

Think about it...how could they ask Rabbi, who sinned, this man ...that he would be born blind?” implying he sinned before he was born as human and blindness was the punishment. Where in Jewish theology is it possible for a man BORN suffering for a previous sin? It is not there - it is only in the words of Christ and scripture though misinterpreted for centuries.

As for Job, he confessed to sin:
Job 42:6 therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”


So see him being called “blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil” as meaning innocent of his own original sin, ie that he was as innocent of sin as was our Christ, is to deny the truth that all have sinned, none are righteous and no one is innocent. That is, this must mean something else.... How do you reconcile this?
 
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Job3315

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John does NOT say the man was being punished for sin but that his malady would be cured for the glory of GOD in that curing a man born blind was considered to be a miracle on the Messiah could do. This answer does not deny that his suffering was not due to sin but only that his suffering for sin was used to glorify GOD.

Think about it...how could they ask Rabbi, who sinned, this man ...that he would be born blind?” implying he sinned before he was born as human and blindness was the punishment. Where in Jewish theology is it possible for a man BORN suffering for a previous sin? It is not there - it is only in the words of Christ and scripture though misinterpreted for centuries.

As for Job, he confessed to sin:
Job 42:6 therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”

So see him being called “blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil” as meaning innocent of his own original sin, ie that he was as innocent of sin as was our Christ, is to deny the truth that all have sinned, none are righteous and no one is innocent. That is, this must mean something else.... How do you reconcile this?

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Every man sinned, just as you stated in a previous post; the man who was born blind, job and everyone else. We were all disconnected from God. My point is that in those instances, the reason for their suffering wasn't sin. In the case of the blind man it was for Gods works to be manifested, and in Job’s case, he was being tested. Both men were sinners, but sin wasn't the root cause of their suffering. That’s why I keep explaining we must learn where the infirmity is coming from and then apply the right solution.
 
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returntosender

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Please consider:
all suffering is due to sin. All pain is an encouragement for us to seek righteousness in HIS name, Heb 12:5-11. No innocents are sown into the world and so no innocents ever suffer or die.

Death / suffering is the wages of sin, not of life. Death / suffering is the proof of sinfulness. No sin then no pain, suffering or death. Do the holy elect angels suffer or die? Not in the least!

What is the disvalue of the least sin? There can be no real least sin because all sin has an equal and ultimate disvalue to GOD. In an elect the least sin puts Christ on the cross. In a non-elect reprobate, the least sin puts them into the outer darkness. All responses to sin proceed from who is sinning and what their eternal relationship is to GOD - not from the disvalue of their worst sin.
I guess you are speaking of Paul who sinned and turned around and did so much for Jesus. His repenting did nothing for him it seems. He suffered and suffered physical pain after he turned from his Saul life.
There are a few of you here that no nothing of what it is to have excruciating pain 24/7 for years. The examples in the bible over and over again of righteous people repenting and still have a life of pain. Job who lived a life of dedication was a guinea pig for Satan. Where was his sin that you are talking. The list goes on. You who have no idea what the subject here should go somewhere else to peddle your sin theory. According to you no matter how much you turn your life around and repent you will still pay forever for your sins if you continue to suffer an unbearable painful life. What did Jesus die for if we continue to suffer for our sins of the past?
 
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TedT

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And the soteriological difference?

And the implication for one's human origin?
You seem to be quoting scripture as if it was the very essence of your meaning of that scripture...eisegesis can be fun...!
 
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