God Allows Pain and Suffering to Conform Us Into His Son's Image

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Image: A woman sitting on a railroad track and cradling her head in her arms. Stewart has blacked out the woman’s legs.

Nobody likes to suffer, but the Bible teaches that God won't allow us to bear more than we can handle. (The young woman in the photo to the right was wearing pants, but I painted a dress on her instead using Microsoft “Paint”. Now she won't be depressed...lol. I know, I'm crazy! Oooaaahhh) 1st Corinthians 10:13, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” Life is often a yoke of wood (burdens), and I hate it; but it beats a yoke of iron (unbearable burdens) that the Devil wants to enslave us to! Jesus promised us that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” One of my very favorite sermons on this Scripture passage is by Dr. Jack Hyles is called: “It Doesn't Matter How You Got There.” I hope you will take the time to listen to the message, I am confident you'll be glad you did!

America was strong during The Great Depression ear of the 1930's and 1940's. People who survived those hard times think very differently than the Baby Boomer generation does, and succeeding spoiled generations of American brats...lol! Seriously, people like my father (1933-2010) and Pastor Jack Hyles (1926-2001), who both grew up very poor during The Great Depression, thought very differently than the Vietnam War generation did a few decades later. My father grew up in an orphanage. The older folks learned how to “USE IT UP, WEAR IT OUT, MAKE IT DO, DO WITHOUT!” Nobody came to the rescue to help them, they toughed it out! One of my favorite sermons by Pastor Jack Hyles is called: “WHY MAMA WAS SO SMART,” all about her suffering through The Great Depression, and how God used it to make her a very wise woman.

My voice counts too as an American and a believer! I preach against everybody, including myself. If you want to find a big sinner, you found him. I am a guilty sinner, deserving of Hell, a diamond in the rough, and the Lord still has a lot of work to do on me. I thank God every day that He loves a lonely misfit like me. As Christians, all we have is each other. John 13:35, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

Religion is one of the worst things that has ever happened to this world. True Christianity has nothing to do with religion. The Bible only mentions “religion” five times, and only once is it well spoken of in James 1:27, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”