This world, when it was created in its very good state, was susceptible to pain, shame and suffering.
Interesting that this same world was delivered through pain, shame, and suffering.
This world is a fallen world. Fallen from its original very good state. It has been subjected to sin and evil and is a world of pain, shame and suffering.
But all is not lost.
God, in His plan of love and deliverance, including moving towards His plan of a new world… a new heaven and new earth… stepped into this world Himself, entering in as the person of Jesus Christ, to save it and deliver it.
The interesting reality is that this world was saved through pain, shame, and suffering, the very things that came about when evil entered in.
But it was through pain, shame, and suffering that evil itself would be destroyed and sin dealt with.
It was through the pain, shame, and suffering which Jesus endured all His life, culminating at the cross, that Jesus delivers us from these very things.
At the cross, He suffered pain and shame at the hands of men, and most intensely suffered the full wrath of God against sin, all the while destroying the works of the devil.
Sin paid for, for all who would believe in Him. The works of evil destroyed.
“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”
1 John 3:8
His death was for our ransom.
And when He rose from the dead, death itself was defeated.
What an amazing God. And an amazing Deliverer, Jesus Christ.
The road of deliverance is one that is and was a road of pain, shame and suffering. Jesus travelled it. And He asks us to travel it as well.
“Take up your cross and follow me.”
Don’t be surprised that while He is preparing a place for us, including a continual gathering from this world all those who believe in His death and resurrection, that we will also experience varying degrees of pain, shame, and suffering. We are, after all, still in this broken world… and wait… with eager expectation, for a new world.
The way of suffering just might be the way of testing and growing us in trusting Him… the way that He wants us to follow, the way He walked before us. Suffering and frustration help keep us fixed not on this world – a temporal world of pain, shame, and suffering – but on Jesus, as we look toward the next world, an eternal one, where pain, shame, and suffering will be no longer.
Let us then live each day with this hope and endure in His power while He tarries. He is coming again!
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33
Photo by Paul Siewert on Unsplash Photo by Jude Beck on Unsplash
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