Why Do Innocent People Suffer (1)
Tuesday February 25, 2014
Someone’s parent dies when they are young. A spouse is killed in a workplace accident. Sexual abuse is inflicted on an innocent child. A sibling is brutally murdered. Stories of famine and injustice fill our newscasts on a daily basis. In the face of these kinds of circumstances, many people ask, “If there is a loving God, how could He allow such things to take place?” Over the next days we will consider some factors that relate to this question.
WHAT WAS GOD’S PLAN, GOD’S DESIRE FOR HUMAN BEINGS? God created us to live in a loving eternal relationship with Him here on earth. God never intended that humans would know evil let alone experience it. Evil entered the world through disobedience and mankind was introduced to all forms of unrighteousness. God had already told Adam that he would die if he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam did not die physically when he and his wife were deceived into eating from this tree, but he did die spiritually. However, because mankind was made in the image of God, eternity was forever planted in the hearts of men and women.
Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart. Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT
“He is the God who made the world and everything in it … From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries. His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist. Acts 17:24, 26-28 NLT
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. Philippians 2:13 NLT
It’s important to remember that regardless of what we are experiencing today God’s original plan for life eternally with mankind has been restored. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection we, who believe on the Lord Jesus, will have eternal life with our Heavenly Father. God created us to have a deeply satisfying relationship with Him and this has been restored through faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross.Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.” (Revelation 19:9 NIV)
If you trust in Jesus, you are invited!
©2014 Partners in Hope
More information on this and other related topics @ www.partnersinhope.ca resources
Recent Meditations
Giving Hope
Partners in Hope is supported wholly by our friends and community. We are thankful to everyone who partners with us to help bring hope to the discouraged, hurting, and hopeless.