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Day 4: Believers Also Suffer

“Then Saul mercilessly persecuted the church of God, going from house to house into the homes of believers to arrest both men and women and drag them off to prison.” — Acts 8:3 TPT

Acts 8:3 in The Living Bible paraphrase says “Paul was like a wild man, going everywhere to devastate the believers . . .” Those are weighty words. For many Christians today, their understanding of God has zero-tolerance for suffering. In their understanding, a good God should keep His children from suffering. A good Savior should not allow a mere man like Saul to devastate the believers by mercilessly persecuting them. As long as we call on Him, all believers should be exempted from whatever unpleasantness goes on in the world—including sickness and death. If your understanding of God and of the Christian faith is such that it can’t process the realities of suffering—if you find yourself questioning the love of God in light of the ongoing realities of our times, you need a few reminders. I don’t have all the answers, but I can share with you four reminders:

1. God is love

Nothing will ever take away this divine attribute of the Father. He has communicated it to all of humanity in the grandest way possible by choosing to become one of us and pay the ultimate price that frees us to enjoy what He had always intended for all humans for all eternity—a blissful fellowship with His eternally loving self. (John 3:16; Romans 8:32).

2. We live in a fallen world

When sin entered the world through our first parents, Adam and Eve, all of creation (our physical bodies inclusive) became subject to the experience of corruption and death. In other words, there is an ongoing time-bound suffering which followers of Christ—alongside all of humanity and all of creation—are going through. Good news: It is time-bound. (Romans 8:20-23).

3. Death is powerless over the believer

For the follower of Christ, death has died. Period. What Paul says to the Colossians, God is saying to all believers: “You should have as little desire for this world as a dead person does. Your real life is in heaven with Christ and God.” (Colossians 3:3 TLB). (See also Philippians 1:20-21).

4. We serve a sovereign God

Divine sovereignty is the canvas upon which God’s love and God’s power find the most beautiful expression. The sovereignty of God teaches us that He is in charge of everything, and He always does what is good, just, right, and wise! (Psalm 33:11; Isaiah 52:10).