SUFFERING

QUESTION:  Why should our good and loving God allow his children to go through suffering?  

ANSWER:  God is never the author of evil.  John 10.10 is the dividing line between what is from God and what is from satan.  "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.  I [Jesus] have come that they may have LIFE and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)."   Anything that steals, kills, or destroys is never from God.  Sickness, poverty, lack, strife, abuse, ect. are not from God, and as believers in the Lord Jesus we are to resist and stand against such things by faith in His Word.  

As servants of God, there is an element of suffering that the Scriptures tell us we will encounter.  II Timothy 3.12 says that ...all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.  Because we follow Jesus, the world is going to hate us, just as they hated Him.  However, Romans 8.36-39 encourages us that even though we may appear to be sheep led to the slaughter - in all these things, we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS through Him who loves us.... Neither death, nor life, nor angels nor demons, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor any created thing will be able to separate us from the Love of God which is in Christ Jesus nor can it separate us from what His Love gives.  It is our divine assignment to live in that place of victory in Christ that He has given to us.