katThe message at my church last week was titled “Act Absolutely According to God’s Will,” this week, another message was given titled, “Consider Absolute Faith as Life.” The first message was about realizing how the people sent by God who act on His will always experience suffering in every period. Yet, we must act according to God’s Will. The second was about the importance of keeping your faith and overcoming doubt because it’s difficult to regain your faith once you shatter it. This week I had a profound realization.
We all want to live comfortable lives. No one likes to experience pain, so we seek whatever will bring us the most joy and least amount of suffering. Quite frankly, most things are obtained through suffering. The clothes we wear took some effort and perhaps even suffering, unfortunately. The house we live in too. Getting to where you are now in your educational journey took some suffering, like many sleepless nights of studying. Working out to get super strong muscles like Dwayne Johnson also takes effort. It’s why people say no pain, no gain.
There may even be times we want to breeze through our lives because the pain is so severe. For example, during the pandemic, many people probably felt this way. The suffering of being indoors, the misery of loneliness, and the pain of death at everyone’s door made us all want to breeze through 2020, 2021, and part of 2022.
We are definitely living in better times now than during the pandemic, in general. Yet sometimes, even though things may be better now in our lives than in the past, we still feel immensely miserable. Why? Because we forget the past, we fail to be thankful for the present.
Remembering your past is very important. Memory is life. As people saved by God’s grace, we must never forget His tremendous blessings and miracles.
My pastor always says, “If you forget, you will die.” Now that’s a scary phrase, but he explains that it’s not that you literally will physically die, but that when you forget your stories with God-how, he helped you and saved you and therefore forsake your faith, you lose your love and die spiritually. What does it mean to die spiritually? It means you’re no longer concerned about spiritual things and don’t realize God’s deep love for you, so you break your relationship with God. You stop caring and eventually drop your faith. It may start with you just living a lukewarm life of faith.
Many people forget their first love, forget why they fell in love with the person they married, and so they divorce. The same can be said about friendships.
But the most important thing we must not forget is our first love for God. If you forget God, you will lose your salvation.
What is God’s Will? His Will can be summarized in one word. His Will is the Bible. What is the Bible? The Bible contains almost 32,000 verses, stories of God’s history with humankind. Ultimately, every story is about God saving humanity, whether an individual or a group of people, from spiritual or physical death (and even when he is saved from physical death, it’s for the sake of the eternal spirit).
What is God’s Will for every single human? He wants us to live united with Him, hear his word, and love spiritually. People who live according to God’s Will are eternally happy and gain success far more significant than a billionaire or king. You can only know this if you value eternal things.
You will find your Will to be fulfilled within God’s Will. People seek to fulfill their dreams but always end meaninglessly, even when they accomplish them because they’re temporary.
We all have this God-given desire to fulfill God’s Will in our lives, but we fail to realize it, so we walk the path of trying to fill the God-sized void in our hearts with other things. This doesn’t work because as we reach all the milestones in our lives (the new house, the new relationship, the new job), we find it’s never enough. You can’t keep up with the Joneses when the world keeps making new and better Joneses every day.
But just because you live fulfilling God’s Will doesn’t mean you will never suffer.
Think about Jesus. He said, “42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” (Luke 22:42-44)
Jesus said this right before he was arrested, for he knew what was coming-his crucifixion.
Imagine loving God so much that you would do anything for his Will, even putting your life on the line? Can any of us say we’d do that?
Jesus was this kind of person, and we should have the same mentality to live eternally successful lives. Now, in our lifetime, as disciples of Jesus, we may not suffer as much as Jesus and his disciples did in their time. Our anguish may be up to par for some of us, but it’s more of a mental battle than a physical one. It’s always been a spiritual battle, though, and it continues. Today we martyr not our lives, but our minds.
So this week, too, I’ve asked myself if I have absolute faith in Jesus. How do I know? What’s a good measure of faith?
Absolute faith means no doubt. Do I have doubts? Do I have distrust, or am I lacking conviction?
If I’m honest, I’m not always 100% faith-filled. Sometimes I worry about the future; sometimes, I don’t do what God inspires me to because I lack conviction or want to live a comfortable life. Sometimes doing God’s work doesn’t feel as urgent as it should be. Everyone likes to believe in Jesus, except when it gets complicated or when things get hard. What if he calls you to live a life of discipleship like Peter, John, Apostle Paul, Timothy, etc.? Would you do it?
These figures lived difficult lives as they followed and believed in Jesus. Yet why did they continue? Why believe in someone who may be the cause of their own ridicule, suffering, or unjust death? Peter died on the cross upside down for believing in Jesus. Paul was martyred for his faith…
Why did they believe, then, to the point of death? Because no matter what anyone has ever taught, no one has ever sacrificed his life for humankind as Jesus has.
After Jesus was crucified, imagine how lost, shaken, and doubtful the disciples must have felt. Peter even returned to his old life as a fisherman. It was only when Jesus resurrected and taught his disciples God’s Will for the future that they realized God’s Will may seem like a path of suffering to the outside world. Still, it’s actually a path of victory.
So they went on a path of heavenly suffering. They believed they were living a heavenly life even though they were living a hellish life full of difficulties. So despite the fact that their lives were difficult, they were happy. It’s all about your thoughts. It’s about having Heaven in your heart.
Sometimes God’s Will is clear; sometimes it takes years to see the big picture and understand, for some even 1000 years.
It’s the same with our lives. Sometimes we suffer so many losses and wonder why our life is filled with so much suffering.
Our difficulties are not as dire as Jesus’ situation, and so following the example of Jesus and his disciples, we should endure those difficulties all the more even though it’s hard.
When God shared His Word with me on Sunday, he also aimed to comfort me. He wanted to tell me I shouldn’t quit or get disheartened but go until the end, not forgetting His grace.
His grace is this: I remember wanting to die in my past because my life was so meaningless and empty. I haven’t felt that way since I learned his words. God restored my desire to live. Therefore if there are any difficulties I go through now-I remember my past life before I was reborn in Christ. It was filled with horrible suffering. So if I got through that back then, there’s nothing I can’t overcome with the Lord by my side.
Yet still, there are moments I feel so upset because of how people in this world may treat me or because of all the things I must endure as a person following His Will. Because I believe in Jesus, many people misunderstand, hate, or try to exploit or manipulate me.
If they hated Him, of course, they would hate his believers. Even as people are causing our suffering, it’s ultimately Satan’s attempt to get us to give up our faith. So come at me, ’cause I’m not going anywhere.
The difficulties we go through in our lives are minor compared to what Jesus or his disciples went through, yet we still feel so upset and indignant. We push against any minor inconvenience, suffering, or betrayal in our lives; we don’t want to suffer not even one bit, and that’s understandable.
But what if suffering is necessary to achieve God’s Will? When something is needed, it’s not because it’s intentionally desired but because it’s what must happen to achieve a specific goal or outcome.
Some suffering is caused by people’s own free will. Some suffering is caused as a result of other people. Some suffering is caused by our environment. God has a Will (it’s always perfect, good, and pleasing-that’s in Romans 12:2), but if people make the wrong decisions, the Will may change; even so God is with us through every difficulty and ensures the best outcome.
Why do we suffer? Suffering is necessary to achieve a specific purpose.
For example, if someone is diagnosed with cancer, that person needs to undergo chemotherapy to overcome it. Although it will be excruciating, it’s what must happen for this person to live.
From reading the Bible, I’ve realized no one in the Old Testament or New Testament lived without enduring severe suffering or injustice. Not a single one. Ultimately it was for their spiritual and physical salvation.
Righteous people don’t suffer because it’s predestined by God. God isn’t sitting on a throne, throwing injustices at us so we’ll grow stronger or realize something. In fact he feels what we feel and is always next to us. Instead, Satan vigorously and recklessly works to bring suffering to those fulfilling God’s Will.
So how do we know we are living by God’s Will? Is my lifestyle, and my actions aligned to God’s Will? I asked myself this question a lot this week.
You must hear God’s word, listen to his voice clearly, and act on it.
Jesus once said, “12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (John 14:12-14)
This is also in James 2:26, “26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”
Matthew 7:24-25 also talks about the necessity to stand first on Christ, who is the rock.
The Wise and Foolish Builders
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”
The things that aren’t God’s will absolutely crumble. It is as it says in Acts 5:38-39, “38 Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.” When you act on the word and test it, you will find if it’s true.
This week someone lied to me, like really bad, about several things. It’s not the first time they lied to me. This person has often lied to many others in the past as well. They have often taken advantage of my kindness. I can forgive white lies, a lie by omission, or if this person lied to protect me. However, this lie, rooted in selfishness and inconsiderateness, is difficult to forgive.
When I found out, I felt hurt and upset. I asked myself why I must go through this suffering. Why would this person lie so much and create more lies instead of admitting the truth? At first, I was angry and just wanted to believe it was because they were terrible. But people are a lot more gray than that; they’re not just white or black., or good or evil; they’re a little bit of both.
Then the more I thought about it, the more I could understand where this person was coming from. Her intention for lying was understandable. Still, her execution and actions resulting from that lie were not. They were not considerate of my time, feelings, or money.
Then I started to think, “Well, what should I do?” As much as I never want to talk to this person again and stop helping them, I care for them.
Then I started to think about God’s heart and how I could turn this situation into something that benefits God’s Will.
God’s Will is not for me to cut that person off entirely and resent them. I’ve learned that. God’s Will is also not for me to continue to be used, taken advantage of, and mistreated-that’s definitely not his desire.
Sometimes good people suffer because of the wrong actions of gray people. Even though you may love Jesus fervently, that doesn’t mean you’ll never experience suffering. Someone may still break into your car, or say something mean to you out of pure jealousy. Sometimes the wounds that hurt the most are those from gray people. Like our close friends and loved ones. After all we’re all human and flawed.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that what’s most important to God is the fulfillment of his Will.
I realized this when I read the book of 2 Peter this week. The words on the pages of the Bible came to life for me and spoke to me as if Jesus was right next to me.
In my heart, I heard God say to me, “I want to save everyone,” and it suddenly made sense to me what I needed to do.
It’s the same reason I continue caring for and loving that person even when they mistreat me. I want them to be saved. I want them to grow closer to Jesus, to believe in him, and to know about his deep love. Why? Because despite their flaws, I love them. I want them to walk down a good path. I am the body Jesus can use to help and show them his love.
So the best thing I can do is endure the suffering, forgive them like Jesus, and welcome them with open arms like the Lost Son’s dad (Luke 15:11-32). God has helped me see that’s what will lead to the best outcome for all of us. Don’t repay evil for evil, but evil with good (Romans 12:17-21). Love your enemies and be merciful so they may realize God’s grace.
This difficulty became an opportunity for me to teach others the truth. It’s also an opportunity to share the gospel with them and, through my actions of forgiveness, show them Jesus’ loving heart…
So I urge you, in whatever difficulties you are facing now, though it may be hard, to- ask yourself what is God’s Will? What can I do to fulfill it, even if it means putting my life on the line, setting my pride aside, enduring, and suffering?
What can I learn from this? Remember Jesus suffered the most, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.” (1 Peter 3:18). Forgive your brother’s sins. God will also forgive you (Matthew 6:14-15).
Peace and love,
Kat
