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Post by Anonymous on May 30, 2005 19:40:42 GMT -5
Does God love everyone? does he love osama bin laden as much as a pastor of a local church? Another question, why do people suffer? People from the tsasumi and everything. Thousands of innocent people died. Did God kill all of these people???
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Post by Timothy Newman on May 31, 2005 4:52:58 GMT -5
Yes God loves everyone. He created everything so he loves all of his creation. Does he love Osama as much as a pastor? Well when God sees sin he doesnt see different degrees of sin. we tend to say that someone who murders others is more sinful than someone who steals, But in Gods eyes a sin is a sin. so if that is true than since the pastor sins and so does osama then yes God loves them the same. that doesnt mean that he doesnt get dissapointed though.
Why do people suffer? I actually did a quick lesson on this about 3 weeks ago. We suffer for many reasons. we suffer as a result of the sins we commit. a bad choice leads to a bad consequence. we suffer to make us better people. long story short if you go through a hard time, trust in God and when the hard time has pasted not only will you have learned something from it but you will be a stronger person because of it.
Did God kill those people? Probably. why? Maybe a wake up call for everyone? I dont really know.
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Post by Todd on May 31, 2005 14:11:03 GMT -5
Along with what Tim said about suffering, I have been reading a book along with a few other youth at my church, which talks about why people suffer. The author gave a very good example of suffering and that is of Jesus. God made Jesus suffer to accomplish something further on down the track. God will make you or someone else suffer to help you or that other person along later in life. No one knew that from Jesus' suffering would come eternal life and all of the good stuff, people just saw that God was punishing Jesus for no reason. God sees everything out of time and not in time as we see it. He can see the suffering right away, but He knows why he did it for he can see into the future and He has control over it and everything. There is a Christian song out there that is played on K-Love which is a Christian radio station in our area that in the song it says, "Blessings in disguise." Those words are of Gods suffering in what he puts down on the human race. You may have a disease but from that disease you may be able to develop into a whole new person that does great things due to you having this disease. The disease has just then blessed you since it and God have made you a better person thus being a blessing in disguise.
By the way K-Love is 104.3 on the radio and two other good stations are 93.3 and 90.1 and thats if you are in the Cincinnati area.
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Post by Anonymous on May 31, 2005 17:16:28 GMT -5
Ok in a way that makes sense. But, you said sin causes suffering. What about before sin? What about genetic disorders and everything? People suffer from these disorders as babies which would be way before they even know what's right and wrong. I agree that suffering can be good. However, I don't agree with the suffering comes from sin. Like I said, you could be born with a genetic disorder at such a young age and you wouldn't know from right and wrong. So, you would still suffer from the disorder but that doesn't necessarily mean that the suffering came from sin because it was before you could sin.
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Post by Todd on May 31, 2005 20:35:39 GMT -5
Yes, that is true that the baby may not have sinned and that is talked about in the Bible
I have read before in the Bible where it says the child born to the parents will have the "problem" due to his parents having sinned before. But also again the "problem" can occur to make a difference in other lives. "1As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
3"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." John 9:1-3. He was pleagued with the disease to help others. It's like a hostage situation. You must sacrifice one person to save a hundred, or in Jesus' case you must sacrifice one to save the whole world. All of the suffering will then have a greater reward in the end later in our life or in someone elses life.
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Post by paintballer01 on Jul 2, 2005 14:12:14 GMT -5
bravo todd i couldnt have said it better! God has truly blessed you with the gift of explaining his Word and sharing the Gospel!
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Post by dan on Jul 4, 2005 4:51:16 GMT -5
I think Jesus' life is relevant to this answer. If God were evil, what do we do with the life of Jesus, who died for us. Jesus shows us that God is not some cloud of power up there going, 'Haha, I think it's time for a little SUFFERING humans!' Jesus shows us that God is desperately in love with us, to the point where he dies for us. He enters into our suffering and demonstrates his love for us even while we are the 'causers' of suffering.
And you may step back and say, 'Ok, thats fine, but it looks like a trick by God.' Thinking that this is a kind of scheme to get us to believe in him. But that doesn't make sense either. If this were a 'trick' to get us to believe in God's love, don't you think God could have pulled off a better trick, one we couldn't 'see through'? No, suffering is real, suffering is hard, but it doesn't nullify God's love for us, because he shows us his love -- not inspite of the suffering, but through it.
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