Living in faith is an essential part of our association and communication with Almighty God, our Father and our God. We as Christians, know, that the strength of our faith is multiplied by God through His Holy Spirit. The hymn "God So Loved The World" expresses just how much God loves us and is there for us, in good times and in trying times.
As Christians, we are all aware that Almighty God tests our "Faith" and does so in so many different way.
We are all aware, if we read our Bibles at all, that God is capable of doing anything, especially performing miracles, and, especially miracles of healing, spiritual healings as well as physical and emotional healings. Almighty God Himself calls Himself a healer, and Jesus the Son of God, proved it to be truth.
Not only have we read of such healing miracles in the Gospels of the Bible, where people were healed by God through Jesus and through Jesus Apostles, but in every day life today, we can pick up a news paper, or turn on the TV, or turn on our computers and read of miracles of healings, and as Christians we know that this is Almighty God at work, doing His thing to improve life for someone as only a God could do.
Still, we hear of other people suffering or even dying, from cancer, or, lukemia, or, heart attack, or, stroke, or, living in a vegetative state from an accident, or, alzheimers, or, some other sickness.
We hear of conflicts and fighting, like Iran wanting nuclear arms and the rest of the civilized world trying to prevent them from having it, or the political turmoil in Egypt, or the ongoing war against terrorism in Afghanistan, we hear of natural disasters, flooding, hurricanes, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, drought, we hear of peoples starving for food, thirsting for water, in need of the barest of necessities for life.
As a Christian Evangelist, as I move amongst the people, especially those who are Atheists, or, Agnostics unbelievers, or, those who are seeking God, seeking to know God, seeking to have God in their lives, even when I am moving amongst other Christians, possibly of lesser faith than I, I am asked, Why?
Why does my God, if he is God, with all of His knowledge and power and abilities, Why does God permit such chaos, such suffering, such pain, such disasters. Sometimes even they are blaming God directly claiming that God caused this and that to happen.
My Holy Spirit alarm immediately goes off. I realize that through their questions they are questioning God, questioning His abilities, in search of answers and in search of miracles, but I also know that at the same time they are placing into question, my belief and my faith in my God. They are indeed looking to see if I have the strength of faith in my convictions concerning Almighty God.
Now I have no idea half the time whether these people are Atheists, or Muslims, Christians, or wannabe Christians, or whatever. I also have no Idea whether or not they will even accept Bible Scripture as an answer to their question.
First I try to discern the reasoning for their question or their doubt, then I immediately shift the blame away from God by explaining that Almighty God, my God is a God of love therefore it is not within His nature to cause any of this, but, that there is one known as satan, a rebellious used to be angel, who seeks to lie, kill, destroy, and breakdown things. He causes chaos and then tries to put the blame on God, thus placing the blame for all of the troubles of the world where it belongs, on satan the destroyer and liar.
My next step is to open my Bible up to MATTHEW: 24: 4-14; and we read these verses together. That usually causes them to have the proper focus.
The hardest question I have to face, is the easiest question I have to answer. If God could have prevented, and can prevent any and all of this chaos and suffering then why doesn’t He, why does he permit it?
This is where I look the person straight in the eye and tell them straight out. God could and God can prevent all of it. But "Free Choice" our free choice prevents it. God also gave to satan a time unspecified, whereby satan is permitted to test our faith in whatever means satan chooses, so he uses these disasterous illnesses and events to see how strong man’s faith in God truly is.
This is usually where I get a weird look, and am asked what do I mean, so I explain it in the best way I know how.
God wants man to love and worship him and only him. He commands it and this is recorded in His 10 commandments, EXODUS: 20: 2-5. But as we have seen Adam and Eve, our original ancestors were tricked, decieved by satan the serpent into choosing to go against God’s Command GENESIS: 2: 16-17 GENESIS: 3: 1-5
To simply demand our love would mean that we are simply being robots and giving as asked like a computer, but God desires it from us freely, we must choose to give him our love, not respond to a command like a computer, or, a dog told to sit, or rollover.
I cannot count the number of times I have had to deal with these sort of situation or questions, but my response continues to be the same.
It has always been my personal belief that you, and, I, and the rest of the world would be better off if God had not permitted man "Free Choice" but then our love of God would not be love, it would be merely "Blind Obedience" God desires love though so we must choose to love Him.
Satan was the instigator for God allowing "Free Choice", and this will be his downfall as one by one humans choose God and love over satan and evil.
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