Children of God
YouthZone
Trueway Presbyterian Church
yz.core@gmail.com
Mission Statement:
We delight in the Lord Jesus
choosing to serve Him as a family
assisting people to find freedom in Christ
building them up to help change the world
Calendar:
Month of January 2010
3 : Trumpet Call - Combined Service
10 : Getting to know each other
17 : Message - Let It Show
24 : Time of Sharing cum B'Day Celerbration
31 : Gospel Sunday
*navigations are the 4 polaroid pictures
7:28 PM
Thursday, June 25, 2009
If suffering and pain exist, a loving God cannot!People ask: “If God is powerful and loving, how come he cannot stop suffering?”
Our Christian response: “God is all-powerful and all-loving yet he allows suffering to persist.”
Reason:
God is all-powerful but he cannot
self-contradict so there are two things he
CANNOT do.
1. He creates us and gives us the freedom to choose so he
CANNOT make us choose ONLY to do good. Otherwise, we will be like robots with no freedom of choice. With real choice comes the possibility that people can choose to do evil.
2. God gives us freedom of choice so for ‘choice’ to be meaningful he
CANNOT miraculously remove the consequences of our evil choices.
Suffering, pain and even death is a result of the consequences of the evil choices we make, i.e. consequences of sin. The consequences do not just affect the one who makes the evil choices but also those around him because we are interdependent beings. Our actions do have an impact on the lives of other people.
God is all-loving. He gives us a free will and He does not intervene to remove the consequences of our choices yet He can still bring about something beautiful out of those consequences. Therein lies his love and power.
If you have any doubt, look at the
cross. Death of God on the cross is the ultimate evil (and God did not stop it) but it resulted in the ultimate good – the salvation of man! (God is always able to turn things around to achieve his good, perfect and pleasing will.)
God’s answer to the problem of suffering is that he came right down into it, i.e. he came to dwell amongst us. He himself bore the pain of this world. Every tear shed becomes his tear. Which god can be said doing the same thing?