Good morning, my friends!

Today’s Biblical principle is a hard one to accept. But, it is essential for us to learn it.

Learning to Think Biblically:

PRINCIPLE #4: We need to stop this fantasy that God always pleases us!
i.e. …that He never allows anything to happen to us that won’t bring us pleasure. Tell that to Job!

* Our thinking is so distorted, that if I suggest that God is actually pleased with our suffering, it sounds like I’m talking about some strange, perverse, foreign God… not the loving God that we like to think about.

* So, let me ask you: Was the God of the Bible PLEASED with Job’s suffering? God was so pleased that He called heaven and earth to witness – to watch Job suffer so that God could brag on him. God said, “Look at my servant Job. Here’s a man who will serve me no matter what!”

* But, here’s another question: Was Job pleased with God? No, but he served Him anyway. Was God pleased with Job? Yes, but He caused him to suffer anyway.

* Can we understand a God like that? No! Paul said, “How unsearchable are His judgments and his ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33). God told Isaiah, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways… For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

* Most people in the world would say, “I don’t want anything to do with a God like that. And, that’s right – they don’t! But, I do! Because, by faith, I can know that “our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

* The sad fact is, most people would rather have an impotent God who is powerless to prevent suffering, than a powerful God who chooses suffering for His children as a means of conforming them to the image of Christ.

Posted by: Jim Leggett