Jesus Is Not A Rebel

 

So many people (mainly Christians) want to say Jesus was a rebel. No, he was not a rebel - he was holy, he was perfect, he was and is our plumb line. WE ARE THE REBELS. We have rebelled against God and to say God is rebellious is ridiculous. Jesus didn't come to earth to rebel against the government or religion. He came to show us how to live and that the only way to have a relationship with God, the Father was through Christ, the Son. How can God rebel? Who is he rebelling against? It doesn't even make sense.

If someone commits a crime (or a sin) then they are being rebellious. Jesus never committed a crime nor a sin so how can anyone call him a rebel? He came here to show us how it was supposed to be – the correct way we are to live – and then give us the ability to run the race toward that goal. Those who chose to ignore Jesus are rebelling against the God who created everything. Should God rebel against Himself? Ludicrous!

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6) If you want to stop rebelling against the holy God of the universe, accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior today. Repent(turn away from your sins) and turn toward the Holy One, Jesus.

R.C. Sproul on Suffering

In our age we think in terms of public relations.  We are afraid people might not care for God if the truth were known about his relationship to suffering.  Better to shield God from accusations that he is not loving and kind by making him impotent in the face of suffering. Better to comfort the afflicted with the idea that God is in his heaven full of sympathy, wishing the suffering would just go away but unable to make it happen.

The Puritans understood what we so often miss in our suffering, that the route to comfort (and , of course, the route to truth) is not to separate the suffering from the sovereignty of God but to recognize just how tightly bound they are.

The goodness of God does not preclude him from allowing suffering or pain.  If anything, the difficult question is not how God could allow us to suffer but how he could allow us, who rebel against his majestic authority every day, who repay our Maker with incessant revolt, ever to experience pleasure. There is no logical problem of pain for sinners, only a problem of pleasure. The puzzler is why God would allow pleasure in the lives of we who hate him and do not obey his commands.

Suffering doesn't just come because God sends it after we sin, but sin will always lead to suffering, because to sin is to act against our best interests. But we mustn't conclude we can measure the sinfulness of a person by the degree of his or her suffering. Did Job deserve what he went through? No, he didn't. Job deserved far worse. Job's plight fell well short of what was due him, eternal damnation. Job was a sinner in the sense that all but Jesus are sinners. And all sinners deserve eternal damnation.

So as we look at the problem of suffering, we must keep in mind not only that we never suffer more than we deserve but also that our suffering does not serve as a barometer of sin.

excerpts from Almighty Over All, R.C. Sproul