Why do Christians still have Problems?
As children of a loving, caring, heavenly father, why are we – Christians – still faced with trying to cope with the problems of the world? We all have problems! That’s life; but we also have a Lord who not only helps us grow through our problems, but also gives us the power to triumph over them. God allows us Christians to face difficulties in life not as punishment, but to strengthen our faith and trust in him. God does not only have a redemptive purpose for problems; he also gives us a specific promise in the Bible for every problem.
This book, the Bible, is a compilation of these problems that so many people have in common, and of the amazing promise of God to deal with these problems. We are spiritually purified not primarily by the dark night of our soul, but by experiencing how much God loves us when we face failure and limitations. The Bible represents human nature as hostile to God (Ezek. 16:46 – 52 NEB), which is primarily why we fail. It predicts a future full of problems. It teaches that the road to heaven is narrow, but the road to hell is wide. Scriptures were clearly not written for those who want simple answers or an easy optimistic view of religion and nature. Scripture is the source and aim of education (White 13).
Education is more than just to pursue a certain course of study. It means that there has to be preparation of the whole period of existence possible to man. It is the development of the body, mind, and soul that the divine purpose in God’s creation may be realized (White 16). The source of education comes from God. In Genesis 3:8 we read and understood that God came to relate to his people in the cool of the day (TLB). This is where He imparts a higher education to us because he has wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and strength. Our minds, hence, are brought into communion with Him and for us to understand Him we need to consider his purpose for creating us.
The majority of problems surface where there is no belief. The Bible is painfully honest. It shows Jacob, the father of its ‘chosen people’, to be a deceiver. It describes Moses the lawgiver as an insecure, reluctant leader, who on his first attempt to come to the aid of his own people, killed a man and then ran for his life to the desert. It portrays David not only as Israel’s most loved king, general, and spiritual leader, but as one who took another man’s wife and then to cover his own sin conspired to have her husband killed.
There is no system of offers of assurance, forgiveness, eternal life, and acceptance into a family; but the offer Christ gave does not depend on what we have done for him, but on our admission of sin and acceptance of what he has done for us. God created the entire universe for his own pleasure (Col. 1:15 – 19, Gen. 1:1 &2:3 NEB). He created us – man for a special reason, in his very image- immortal like unto Him, with a soul which has a mind, emotion and will – the power to think, feel and decide. God created us for three distinct reasons:
to rule over the earth (Gen. 1:26 – 30)
to obey him (Gen. 2:16 – 7)
to fellowship with him (Gen. 3: 8 – 9). (NEB)
It is because of our lack of regard for God why we have lost our godlike qualities and state of innocence. Life now becomes hard and painful (Gen. 3: 16 – 9 NEB), but God has a strategy to overcome every obstacle. We therefore need a change of view, a change of mind, a change of attitude and desires, and a change of purpose. We need to be regenerated; we need a new birth, a new desire, and the receiving of God’s nature.
This book, the Bible, is a compilation of these problems that so many people have in common, and of the amazing promise of God to deal with these problems. We are spiritually purified not primarily by the dark night of our soul, but by experiencing how much God loves us when we face failure and limitations. The Bible represents human nature as hostile to God (Ezek. 16:46 – 52 NEB), which is primarily why we fail. It predicts a future full of problems. It teaches that the road to heaven is narrow, but the road to hell is wide. Scriptures were clearly not written for those who want simple answers or an easy optimistic view of religion and nature. Scripture is the source and aim of education (White 13).
Education is more than just to pursue a certain course of study. It means that there has to be preparation of the whole period of existence possible to man. It is the development of the body, mind, and soul that the divine purpose in God’s creation may be realized (White 16). The source of education comes from God. In Genesis 3:8 we read and understood that God came to relate to his people in the cool of the day (TLB). This is where He imparts a higher education to us because he has wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and strength. Our minds, hence, are brought into communion with Him and for us to understand Him we need to consider his purpose for creating us.
The majority of problems surface where there is no belief. The Bible is painfully honest. It shows Jacob, the father of its ‘chosen people’, to be a deceiver. It describes Moses the lawgiver as an insecure, reluctant leader, who on his first attempt to come to the aid of his own people, killed a man and then ran for his life to the desert. It portrays David not only as Israel’s most loved king, general, and spiritual leader, but as one who took another man’s wife and then to cover his own sin conspired to have her husband killed.
There is no system of offers of assurance, forgiveness, eternal life, and acceptance into a family; but the offer Christ gave does not depend on what we have done for him, but on our admission of sin and acceptance of what he has done for us. God created the entire universe for his own pleasure (Col. 1:15 – 19, Gen. 1:1 &2:3 NEB). He created us – man for a special reason, in his very image- immortal like unto Him, with a soul which has a mind, emotion and will – the power to think, feel and decide. God created us for three distinct reasons:
to rule over the earth (Gen. 1:26 – 30)
to obey him (Gen. 2:16 – 7)
to fellowship with him (Gen. 3: 8 – 9). (NEB)
It is because of our lack of regard for God why we have lost our godlike qualities and state of innocence. Life now becomes hard and painful (Gen. 3: 16 – 9 NEB), but God has a strategy to overcome every obstacle. We therefore need a change of view, a change of mind, a change of attitude and desires, and a change of purpose. We need to be regenerated; we need a new birth, a new desire, and the receiving of God’s nature.
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