Free Spirit Boutique

Kevin says:

huh

? HOLLY COW ? says:

Nice book ya wrote.

Voice of Reason says:

God has a plan for each and every one of us. However, every person that has ever lived has had total and complete free will. It’s up to you to choose God’s plan or not. You can follow Him, or you can walk away at any moment. This concept is illustrated over and over and over throughout the Bible. I don’t understand why it’s such a big “mystery.”

The only controversy on this issue is from people who don’t read what is clearly stated in the Bible.

Granny Annie says:

The whole problem is a straw man. The difficulty arises from man’s lack of understanding about what it really means for God to be omniscient.

It’s like this. Example: I know that Sunday morning there will be Mass. I know too that most of my fellows will be there. I probably will be there as well unless something prevents me.
NONE of the above means that any of my fellow parishioners will actually show up.

What I know to be true and what they do are two different things, even when they look the same. I have NO way of coercing them to show. That’s their free will choice. BUT, I know these people very well. I know their habits, their past actions and so I know pretty well what they will be doing come Sunday.

Now God knows even better than me what they’re gonna be doing. But He, no more than I, coerces them into doing or not doing it.

Predestination theories negate that basic difference. They seem to think that His knowing is the same as His commanding. Tain’t so, McGee.

Meat Machine® XXL says:

It can, but not using scripture.

Lynnrose2 says:

not sure what your question is
However
Predestination is a religious concept, under which the relationship between the beginning of things and the destiny of things is discussed. Its religious nature distinguishes it from other ideas concerning determinism and free will, and related concepts. In particular, predestination concerns God’s decision to create and to govern Creation, and the extent to which God’s decisions determine ahead of time what the destiny of groups and individuals will be.

Christians understand the doctrine of predestination in terms of God’s work of salvation in the world. The doctrine is a tension between the divine perspective, in which God saves those whom he chooses from eternity apart from human action, and the human perspective, in which each person is responsible for his or her choice to accept or reject God. The views on predestination within Christianity vary somewhat in emphasis on one of these two perspectives.

In terms of ultimates, with God’s decision to create as the ultimate beginning, and the ultimate outcome, a belief system has a doctrine of predestination if it teaches:

1. God’s decision, assignment or declaration concerning the lot of people is conceived as occurring in some sense prior to the outcome, and
2. the decision is fully predictive of the outcome, and not merely probable.

There are numerous ways to describe the spectrum of beliefs concerning predestination, in Christian thinking. To some extent, this spectrum has analogies in other monotheistic religions, although in other religions the term predestination may not be used. For example, teaching on predestination may vary in terms of three considerations.

1. Is God’s predetermining decision based on a knowledge of His own will, or does it arise from a knowledge of whatever will happen?
2. How particular is God’s prior decision: is it concerned with particular persons and events, or is it limited to broad categories of people and things?
3. How free is God in effecting His part in the eventual outcome? Is God bound or limited by conditions external to his own will, willingly or not, in order that what has been determined will come to pass?

Furthermore, the same sort of considerations apply to the freedom of man’s will.

1. Assuming that an individual had no choice in who, when and where to come into being: How are the choices of existence determined by what he is?
2. Assuming that not all possible choices are available to him: How capable is the individual to desire all choices available, in order to choose from among them?
3. How capable is an individual to put into effect what he desires?

Some Biblical verses often used as sources for Christian beliefs in predestination are below.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, [...]” (Eph. 1:3-5, NASB)

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.” (Rom. 8:28-30, NASB)

“[...] but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; [...]” (1Cr. 2:7, NASB)

“For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” (Act. 4:27-28, NASB)

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph. 2:4-9, NASB)

“[...] who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, [...]” (2Ti. 1:9, NASB)

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;

And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them. (Psa. 139:16, NASB)

“So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. [verse 17 omitted] So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.” (Rom. 9:16-18, NASB)

How can we have free will if God has a plan for our lives and knows everything we’ll do in advance?

Since God is omniscient, God has foreknowledge, meaning he knows what everyone will do in the future and what any individual would do in any given situation. This foreknowledge enables God to have a plan for everyone’s life. For instance, if God wants a particular action to occur, he knows who would choose to do that action, and under what circumstances they would choose it; thus he is able to plan for it to happen. However, God’s knowing what choices we will make is simply knowledge – it doesn’t remove our free will, for we are still the ones making the choices.

This may be more understandable if we consider that we have a type of foreknowledge from our knowledge of history. For example, we know that the Americans won the Revolutionary War. If we went back in time before the Revolutionary War took place, our knowing the outcome wouldn’t force anyone to do anything.
Our knowing the Boston Tea Party would take place wouldn’t mean that the colonists would be forced to throw the tea overboard, it would only mean that we’d know what the colonists would choose to do. It’s the same with God: his knowing what we’ll freely choose to do doesn’t mean we’re forced to make that choice.

“4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Ephesians 2:4-10 [NIV]

Assuming the free-will of man is the reason for suffering and sinfulness in the world, how will God ensure that heaven is free of these evils without doing away with man’s free-will? Can God afford to allow us to have free-will at all?

Revelation 21:27 teaches that sin will no longer be present in Heaven:

And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

In other words, those who are still living in sin (the unsaved) will not enter into Heaven, and those who do enter (those written in the Lamb’s book of life) have no desire whatsoever to work abomination (sin).

This is seen in a smaller way in life on earth. When a person truly becomes saved, they no longer want to sin in their soul existence, and they place the commands of God first in their life. However, they still sin, because they have an unsaved body. Once we reach the end of time, all saved individuals will receive a new glorified body in addition to their already saved soul.

The Bible declares that we were created with certain God-like qualities. We have a dignity, abilities and spiritual qualities that put us on an altogether different level of being from the animal world. Above all, we were created to exist in a loving relationship both with God and with other humans. However, love cannot exist where there is not the freedom to choose. When I wanted to marry the woman who is my wife, I did not take her by the throat and say, “You will love me…or else!” Whether we like it or not, love doesn’t work that way. In creating us, God loved us enough to give us the freedom to reject that love. Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy says:
“Love cannot exists where there is not the freedom to choose”

The greatest gift which God in his bounty bestowed in creating humans, and the most conformed to his own goodness, and that which he prizes the most, was the freedom of the will.

The problem is that we messed things up. People turned away from God and we have all misused this gift of freewill. We choose alternatives to God. The Bible declares, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). We are not only free to turn away from God, we are free to stay away. That is why hell has been called the greatest monument to human freedom and dignity.

The freedom to choose leads on to another problem – the problem of evil. Who is responsible for the suffering in what was Yugoslavia, or in Somalia, or Rwanda, or Sudan, or Angola? Again, who is responsible for the ecological **** of our planet, the pollution of the oceans and the atmosphere, and the destruction of the forests? Not all suffering is caused by human action, but the greater percentage of it is.
“Not all suffering is caused by human action, but the greater percentage of it is”

Religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, New Age and Christian Science tend to blur the distinction between good and evil; but not the Bible. We are responsible beings and when we choose evil instead of good, selfishness instead of love, wilfulness instead of God, then we, and others, suffer the consequences. The Bible emphasises strongly the link between suffering and evil. We are members of a fallen and corrupted race, and though still capable of much good, we somehow spoil whatever we put our hand to.

Although we may consider ourselves a little superior to others in the moral realm, we are all part of the problem. Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who experienced human nature in the raw in the labour camps of Siberia, said:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.

It is for this reason that God has not yet intervened to put an end to evil once and for all, as the Bible declares that one day he will. In his mercy he gives us the opportunity to change our ways and turn to him.

It is because of this inseparable link between suffering and evil that God could not deal with one without taking care of the other. The wonder of it all is that God has already acted to deal with the problem of evil through Jesus Christ. In doing so he has ultimately guaranteed the removal of suffering. Richard Halverson, former chaplain to the U. S. Senate, says:

He was the Great Physician, and in the finest tradition of medical science, he was unwilling to remain preoccupied with the symptoms when he could destroy the disease. Jesus Christ was unwilling to settle for anything less than elimination of the cause of all evil in history.

God chose to enter human history in the person of Jesus Christ.* He was born in a feeding trough. At the age of one or two his parents took him to Egypt to escape King Herod’s slaughter of all the small children in the area. He spent his early years in a foreign country. He grew up in obscurity, probably following his father’s trade as a carpenter. He was poor, depending on the support of others for his public ministry.

*The Bible teaches that within the Godhead there are three equal Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, commonly spoken of as the Trinity. Jesus, the Son, took on human nature in the womb of Mary. I have dealt with the divinity of Jesus more fully in the booklet, Is Jesus Really God?

Throughout his ministry he was accused of being a glutton, a madman, a drunkard, a deceiver, a demon or possessed of the devil, a friend of prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners. He was excommunicated from the synagogue and several times threatened with stoning. His home folks sought to throw him over a cliff.

Finally he was betrayed, deserted by his friends, suffered the worst kind of flogging, and was nailed publicly to a wooden cross. He is described in the Bible as “a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering” (Isaiah 53:3). If Jesus is God, as the New Testament declares, and Christians have always believed, then God knows all about suffering. As Dorothy Sayers wrote in Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World:
“The God who gave us the dignity of freedom of choice, now takes upon himself the consequences for our wrong choices”

For whatever reason God chose to make people as they are – limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death – he had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from us that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When he was man, he played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it all worthwhile.

Yet the physical and mental suffering I have described pales into insignificance beside another kind of suffering that Jesus endured on the cross. The Bible says, “Christ carried the burden of our sins” (I John 2:2).

In some remarkable way, when Jesus hung on the cross he was taking on his own shoulders the consequences of the evil of the human race. This is the amazing centrepiece of the gospel story. The God who gave us the dignity of freedom of choice, now takes upon himself the consequences for our wrong choices. “Christ died once for our sins. An innocent person died for those who are guilty. Christ did this to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18). God suffered at the point of our greatest need. And that, for him, meant the greatest possible suffering.

Where true love exists, and where there is suffering, then love must suffer. American philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff, who lost a son in a climbing accident, says in his book Lament For a Son:

God is love. That is why he suffers. To love our suffering world is to suffer…The one who does not see God’s suffering does not see his love. So, suffering is down at the centre of things, deep down where the meaning is. Suffering is the meaning of our world. For love is meaning. And love suffers. The tears of God are the meaning of history.

The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word “love”. For the Christian a true understanding of love must always begin at the cross of Jesus.

James Jones, in his very helpful book, Why Do People Suffer? tells the story of a school that collapsed, killing all the teachers and most of the children. A little boy, badly maimed, was rescued from the rubble and rushed to hospital. For hours a team of doctors and nurses fought to save his life while his mother waited anxiously outside the operating theatre. After seven hours of painstaking surgery the little boy died.

Instead of leaving it to the nurse to tell the mother, the surgeon went himself. As he broke the dreadful news the mother became hysterical in her grief and attacked the surgeon, pummelling his chest with her fists. But instead of pushing her away, the doctor held her to himself tightly until the woman’s sobbing subsided and she rested cradled in his arms.

And then in the heavy silence the surgeon began to weep. Tears streamed down his face and grief racked his body. For he had come to the hospital the moment he heard that his one and only son had been killed in the same school.
“The tears of God are the meaning of history”

We may feel angry with God at times. I somehow think he is big enough to take that. He understands. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

The influential Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, once put it like this:

“There cannot be a God of love,” people say, “because if there was, and he looked upon the world, his heart would break.” The church points to the Cross and says, “It did break”

Lisa Goertz was a Jewish lady who lost most of her family in the **** holocaust, including her mother, husband, brother, son and daughter. At one point, when 16 members of her family had disappeared, she decided to end it all. In her book, I Stepped into Freedom, she tells what happened:

I walked out into the night, feeble with hunger, half crazy with fear and fatigue, and made my way down to the river Neisse. In a few hours all would be over, I told myself. What a relief! And there it happened. Across the dark river I saw the Cross and Jesus Christ on it. His face was not the face of a victor; it was the face of a fellow-sufferer, full of love and understanding and compassion. We gazed at each other, both of us Jews, and then the vision disappeared.

For Lisa this was the beginning of the road that led to faith and personal healing.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead was the public demonstration that he had defeated the forces of evil and conquered death itself, the end result of evil. In so demonstrating his victory he pointed the way to the final victory, when both sin and suffering would be banished forever from his kingdom.*

* I have dealt with this more fully in the booklet, Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?
“He didn’t give us a placebo or a pill or good advice. He gave us himself”

What I am saying here is that the answer to the problem of suffering is not an idea – it is a person. For the problem is about someone (God – why does he…? why doesn’t he…?). We don’t just ask the questions in a vacuum, but within a relationship, like a little child with tears in its eyes looking up at Daddy and weeping, “Why?” Or perhaps in anger, demanding an answer. God’s answer is not just to give us words, but to give us Jesus. As philosopher Peter Kreeft puts it in his excellent book, Making Sense out of Suffering:

He didn’t give us a placebo or a pill or good advice. He gave us himself. He came. He entered space and time and suffering. He came, like a lover. Love seeks above all intimacy, presence, togetherness.

Kreeft continues to

Remove Jesus and the knowledge of God is questionable. If the knowledge of God is questionable, trusting this unknown God becomes questionable…Suffering is the evidence against God, the reason not to trust him. Jesus is the evidence for God, the reason to trust him.

It is significant that Jesus rose from the dead with a body that still bore the marks of his sufferings in his hands, his feet and his side. Throughout all eternity he will bear those scars. It is because of them that you and I may, if we choose, share that eternity with him as “co-heirs” of his glory (Romans 8:17).

Standing somewhere in the shadows you’ll find Jesus;
He’s a friend who always cares and understands;
Standing somewhere in the shadows you will find him,
And you’ll know him by the nail prints in his hands.

Because of his death for our sins and his resurrection, Jesus is now able to offer us forgiveness and reconciliation to God. If we turn to him in trust and submission, he comes by the Holy Spirit to live within us. His purpose is to transform us into the kind of people he wants us to be and to fit us for God’s service. Often he will use suffering in our lives to achieve this purpose.
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world”

Some Roman Catholics use the term “redemptive suffering”. Mary Craig had four sons, two of whom were born with severe abnormalities, one with disfiguring and incapacitating Hohler’s syndrome, and one with Down’s syndrome. In her book, significantly entitled Blessings, she says:

…the value of suffering does not lie in the pain of it…but in what the sufferer makes of it…It is in sorrow that we discover the things which really matter; in sorrow that we discover ourselves.

She speaks of “the redemptive power of suffering”. The word “redeem” means “to set someone free by paying a price”. In the Bible the word is used of people or things. However, if we can think in terms of Jesus paying the price to set us free from the negative consequences of suffering, then maybe it is also a useful term to use in this context. He can set us free from bitterness, rebellion, a sense of hopelessness or uselessness, and other negative attitudes that often come with suffering. He can bring good out of the worst experiences. He is able to teach us the truth of Paul’s word, “in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28).

The Bible indicates that suffering can at times be the direct result of our sins. However, it is unique in teaching how God uses suffering for his own glory and ultimately for ours too. This is where the emphasis lies in the New Testament. It is interesting to note the number of occasions when suffering and glory are mentioned together. True happiness results from being a certain kind of person, not from being in a certain set of circumstances. God loves us enough to persist in moulding our character, often through trials, and even when we would rather remain in our immaturity. C. S. Lewis said in The Problem of Pain:

When we want to be something other than the thing that God wants us to be, we must be wanting what, in fact, will not make us happy…whether we like it or not, God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want. Once more, we are embarrassed by the intolerable compliment, by too much love, not too little.

It was this understanding and faith that enabled Helen Keller, blind and deaf from early childhood, to say, “I thank God for my handicaps, for through them I have found myself, my work, and my God.”

Dr. Edward Wilson, who died with Scott on the journey back from the South Pole, left this testimony behind him:

This I know is God’s own truth, that pains and troubles and trials and sorrows and disappointments are either one thing or another. To all who love God they are love tokens from him. To all who do not love God and do not want to love him they are merely a nuisance. Every single pain that we feel is known to God because it is the most loving touch of his hand.

Jesus did not come to make a way out, but a way through. He came not to make life easy, but to make people great. Life can be like a grindstone for some, but whether it grinds or polishes is up to us. George Macdonald adds a thoughtful insight when he says:

The Son of God suffered unto the death, not that we might not suffer, but that our suffering might be like his.

Bible passages on suffering

There are a number of passages in the Bible that deal with God’s purposes in allowing suffering and trials. If you read them through you will find them associated with such things as:

Developing humility
Helping us sort out the best values and priorities
Being taught the value of submission to God
Learning obedience to God’s word
Learning patient endurance
Developing character
Producing hope
Learning to depend on the resources Jesus supplies
Experiencing God’s enabling grace
Being privileged to share in Christ’s sufferings
Growing in holiness
Developing a strong faith
Learning the truth that if we have God we have all that is necessary for full maturity – all that God wants us to be

Some of the most significant of these passages are: Deuteronomy 8:2,3; the book of Job; Psalm 119:67,71,75; John 9:1-3; Romans 5:3-5; 8:18, 35-39; 2 Corinthians 1:3-11; 4:7-12; 12:7-10; Philippians 1:19-30; 3:10; 2 Timothy 2:3; Hebrews 5:8; 12:4-11; James 1:2-4; I Peter 1:6,7; 4:12,13,19; Revelation 21:4. The great theme of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians is how God can reveal his power and grace through our human frailties and weaknesses, and our suffering. It is a book worthy of study.

The Bible passages I have quoted above deal exclusively with God’s purposes in allowing his own people to experience suffering. The Bible also gives many examples of God permitting suffering in the lives of those who are in rebellion against him, so that they will turn to him. It was the suffering of the Prodigal Son in the pig-pen that caused him to return to his waiting father. C. S. Lewis wrote:

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

Throughout my years of ministry I have often seen folk come to faith in Christ as the result of some personal suffering or tragedy. In some instances I am sure they would not have found that faith otherwise.

The Bible declares that exclusion from God’s presence, and the consequent loss of everything good, is the ultimate end for those who choose to reject God. If this is so, then permitting us to suffer may be the kindest thing that God could do. Sadly, we may refuse to listen to his voice and become hardened or bitter.

A moving story of a Christian who experienced suffering comes from the pen of John Wimber, told in an article in Christianity Today. Wimber has a ministry that has touched thousands of people around the world. He tells of a Christian man whose life was completely reshaped by personal tragedy.

One afternoon, while baby-sitting for a family a few houses from his home, this man’s teenage daughter was brutally murdered by a young man who attempted to **** her. At the end of the day, utterly desolate, the father went back to his house and gathered his family together to pray. He bowed his head and said, “Father, I don’t understand. But I trust you.”

Over the months and years that followed, he experienced a profound motivation to make Christ known. The story of his daughter’s murder, the pursuit of her killer, the trial, and the father’s forgiveness of the young man were front-page news for months in the Los Angeles area. People knew about him and were willing to listen to him. Through his testimony to Christ, hundreds of people came to faith in Jesus.

Some years later, his 22-year-old only son who had just graduated from college – a wonderful Christian, a fine athlete, a brilliant student – was in an auto accident and his skull was crushed. Today this father cares for his big, handsome boy, who functions with significant handicaps and must be watched at all times. However, the mysterious working of God’s purposes, which would have driven many into unbelief, has driven this man on. He continued to pray, “Father, I don’t understand, but I trust you.” He continues to lead people to Christ. Wimber says:

I am one of them. One evening years ago I knelt in this man’s living room, and he prayed for me as I turned my life over to Christ. Something that was in this man’s life was placed on me…God blessed me and gave me great opportunity. I carry in my being the mantle that was passed on to me by this man.

I am sure that if I were designing a programme to prepare an evangelist, I would never come up with anything like that…But God’s action in this man’s life produced a broken and contrite heart, and a highly motivated personality. He went out and has done the job the Lord gave him from that day forth.

If we are going to pursue the things of the Lord, we will often not understand what he is doing…As my friend always used to tell me, “Sometimes God crushes a petal to bring out its essence.” Sometimes he offends our minds to reveal our hearts.

God may not remove our suffering, but he can transform it into something that will bring benefit to us and glory to him – if that is what we desire, and if we will trust him to do so.

The ultimate removal of suffering

The victory won by Jesus through his death and resurrection is given in the Bible as the guarantee of his final triumph, when he will judge the world and usher in “a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13). In that day “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4). As Philip Yancey, one of today’s most helpful writers on the problem of suffering, puts it, “God’s miracle of transforming Bad Friday into Easter Sunday will be enlarged to cosmic scale.”

How glorious that future will be is beyond our full understanding, though the New Testament gives us some clues if we will but search them out. We need to have long-term goals that have as their end-view God’s ultimate purpose for us in his kingdom. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed by the ***** for his stand against Hitler, wrote from prison, “In view of our supreme purpose, the present difficulties and disappointments seem trivial.” For the person who is trusting in Jesus, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

A Ugandan Christian, Henry, was on a bus that was attacked by guerrillas. Half his face was blown away. A Christian organisation got him to Montreal where he had many operations. David Watson, an Anglican clergyman, tells of his visit with him. He could not help flinching when he saw the mask that was once a face. But Henry’s eyes still sparkled. He was unable to speak, but he wrote on paper for David, “God never promises us an easy time. Just a safe arrival.” Thank God that we have that assurance. As St. Clement of Alexandria put it, Christ has turned all our sunsets into dawn.

Charles Colson was one of President Nixon’s staff who went to prison over the Watergate Scandal. Shortly before going to prison he became a Christian through the witness of a Christian friend in the US Senate. While in prison his faith matured, and when he came out he founded the organisation Christian Prison Fellowship, which ministers to prisoners world-wide. In an article in Christianity Today he tells of visiting a prison in Brazil called Humaita.

Twenty years ago this prison, in the city of Sao Jose dos Campos, was turned over to two Christian laymen. The prison has only two full-time staff; the rest of the work is done by inmates. Every prisoner is assigned an inmate to whom he is accountable. In addition, every prisoner is assigned a volunteer family from the outside that works with him during his term and after his release. Every prisoner joins a chapel programme, or else takes a course in character development.

Colson says:

When I visited Humaita, I found the inmates smiling – particularly the murderer who held the keys, opened the gates, and let me in. Wherever I walked I saw men at peace. I saw clean living areas, people working industriously. The walls were decorated with biblical sayings from Psalms and Proverbs. Humaita has an astonishing record. Its inmate’s rate for recidivism [repeated crimes on release] is 4 percent, compared to 75 percent in the rest of Brazil and the United States. How is all this possible?

I saw the answer when my guide escorted me to the notorious punishment cell once used for torture. Today, he told me, that cell houses only a single inmate. As we reached the end of a long concrete corridor and he put the key into the lock, he paused and asked, “Are you sure you want to go in?”

“Of course,” I replied impatiently. “I’ve been in isolation cells all over the world.” Slowly he swung open the massive door, and I saw the prisoner in that punishment cell: a crucifix, beautifully carved by the Humaita inmates – the prisoner Jesus, hanging on the cross. “He’s doing time for all the rest of us,” my guide said softly.

Jesus “did time” for all of us when he paid for our sins on the cross. My question to you is not, “Can you believe in God?” but, “Can you believe in this God?” It is not only possible to believe in him. It is also possible to know him and to experience his love. If this is what you are looking for, you may find it helpful to pray a prayer something like this:

God, I admit that I am part of this world’s problems.

I have failed to give you the rightful place in my life and live by your commands. I need your forgiveness.

I accept that Jesus suffered for my sins and I gratefully receive his forgiveness and the gift of eternal life.

Come into my life.

Mould me into the person you want me to be.

I accept from your gracious hand whatever experiences of sorrow or joy you may find necessary to strengthen my faith, deepen my character and fit me for my service to you and to others in this world.

I look Foreward to the experience of knowing you fully in that place in your kingdom which you purchased for me at such a cost. Help me to be worthy of it.

If you make such a commitment, read a modern translation of the New Testament and explore further the secrets there that God wants to reveal to you. Find some mature Christians who can encourage you. My expectation is that as you do you will find bits of the puzzle falling into place. Not all of them will – not in this life. However, you will find a growing confidence that one day all will be revealed to your complete satisfaction and joy. The One who is now becoming part of your life is the One who does have all the answers to the mysteries of this amazing world which he created. That includes the mystery of suffering.

One day we will all face GOD before we go.
God bless you
Im not sure if this is helpful or not
I know its a bit long

Josep . says:

THE NECESSARY LAW FOR SUSTAINABILITY
Dominated by a powerful and natural instinct of survival, the human being has been transported through the pass of time toward his multiplication, to be able occupy completely some day our big and extensive planet. Two thosand and five hundred years ago, the Roman patricians promulgated the first shelter law (or guardianship) still today effective which, invites at the parents to give dress, bed and food at the minors age. With it, many minors could obtain the necessary condition, to be able to stop the activities that often being smalls they were forced.
Unfortunately for we, imagine the effects of a permanent or continuous shelter for the people who wish it, has been until today and impossible issue. Now, our first mision is recognize that, with it, we can obtain many benefits. First, the necessary apparatus to safeguard in a natural way, our demographic levels for the future coming. In second place, with this simple law, fredom source and basic for many citizens – we also could get the necessary condition to put the point and end to the social disorders and sufferings like wars, prostitution, the poverty, the illness, the hunger, drugs, delinquency, crimes, emigration…
And finally, like third point with a more just and human shelter, besides obtaining the fruits of freedom, we will obtain the natural apparatus to safeguard and control ours planetarious levels of contamination and degradation due our due to our old and altruistic system of consumption for the future coming.
The reform of this law is an exercise that we must realize between all as rapidly as possible to avoid the appearance of the new evils.

JOSEP CAMPS
SPAIN
After reflect about this, help me to show this page at the people
thank you.