Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Suffering: A Greatest Challenge to the Christian Faith

Good afternoon, bloggers!!

We're studying "Case for Faith" on Wednesday nights!! Lee Strobel's book, "Case For Faith" is awesome!! It's a highly recommended book to read!! Here's one excerpt that touched my heart! It actually felt like a train hit me!!

British minister, John R.W. Stott acknowledged that suffering is "the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith," has reached his own conclusion:

"I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross... In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away.

And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me!

He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in light of His. There is still a question mark, the cross which symbolizes divine suffering. 'The cross of Christ... is God's only self-justification in such a world' as ours."

Powerful comparison and thought!!! And that's why I love Jesus! I love Him to death! He endured the cross for us.. We, in turn, ought to endure the cross ourselves!! In the next blog, I will be posting another article explaining "The Cross".. When you have taken the "cross" and followed Jesus, are you still carrying the "cross"? It's easy to misunderstand this part.. Please take the time and read my next post in this blog.

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