The Mystery of Creation: Chapter 1: The Seven Basics of Christianity: Suffering and Sin

Suffering and Sin

                Although I just went over the very most important things that Christians should live by, I think it is also important to discuss a few others that will help every Christian tremendously.  Since we don’t live in a perfect world, it is important that Christians live as best they can like Christ.  Therefore, it is important that we keep a few things in mind.

                Sometimes people go through bad things and their productivity in God’s Kingdom suffers during such times, typically.  Therefore, be wise and do not judge a Christian when they are going through something hard and they aren’t exactly being the best Christian that you think they should be.  Keep in mind that when people are acting out, being mean or just plain sinning, it is usually a symptom of something bad that is happening in their lives.

                Therefore, always remember that they are human and are weak, and their weaknesses will make it hard on them to continue serving God the way they should while they are hurting.  Kudos to those who actually DO continue doing as they should when going through hardships, for their testimonies will touch the hearts and lives of many and their rewards will be great!  You are examples to us all, just as Jesus was an example. 

                However, it is unrealistic to put this kind of pressure on everyone that they have to live as those saints do who manage to overcome such great trials while still doing what is right all the time.  Granted, it is the best way to be, but if you find yourself in that place where you are not living as you should because you are just trying to cope with life, don’t allow the Devil to make you feel worse about yourself.  Remember, Jesus didn’t come and die for people who have it all together.  He came to die for the weak who are unable to pull themselves up out of the mire; who are slaves to their rebellion.  Jesus loves everyone, and He hurts for those who are hurting regardless of whether you are sinning or not.  Your sin has no power over Christ.  He overlooks your sin and just sees His precious child…hurting.

                Therefore, Christians should not judge people.  We should not say, “They are obviously not saved,” or “That person is certainly going to Hell,” or, “They are obviously backsliding.”  Just because they might be swearing or drinking or smoking or doing drugs or whatever it is you see that they are doing wrong, it doesn’t mean that they don’t love Jesus.  In fact, often times they hurt all the more because they love Christ and do these horrible things.  The guilt often tears them apart far more than any sinner who doesn’t know Christ.

                Jesus died for all such people.  If they love Jesus and want to escape from these things but are trapped in these things, pray for them and try to help them escape (if you can help them and they’ll let you help them).  They are miserable people indeed who love Christ and yet still live in sin.  Don’t try to “save them” all over again.  That offends most people who are hurting, and they will immediately reject your “help”. 

                What most people need when they are hurting is for people to just love them and show compassion to them and try to help them however they can.  This does not mean talk them to death or offer your advice, as if you know what they are going through better than they do.  In fact, trust me when I say, talking people to death when they are hurting only hurts them more.  I’ve been both the deliverer of this incessant talking and the recipient.  Both have led me to heartache and pain.

                When I was hurting, it drove me crazy when people came along and tried to give me their opinions and advice or when they would say, “You’ve got to just give it to Jesus!  He can help you overcome because He is faithful,” or something along those lines.  Those words are true, and every now and then it is good to hear them.  However, hearing that from every single person every single time you see them is awful. 

                Trust me…lots of times a Christian has already tried to “give it to Jesus” numerous times before they ever revealed the painful thing to you.  It’s usually a Christian’s first response to say, “give it to Jesus.”  Giving it to Jesus doesn’t always end the pain right away, and it can be very frustrating when the pain is still there and people are telling you to do something you’ve already tried doing.  When you are hurting, you don’t want people to give you their solutions, especially if you’ve already tried them.

                The best way to be there for someone is to just listen.  Let them tell you what THEY need.  Let them complain at you without you giving your opinions and advice (unless they ask for them).  Even if they ask for your opinions and advice, keep them short and to the point.  Going on and on with your feelings and thoughts may only make them regret asking you for your opinions and advice.  So be careful just how much you give of both of those.  It may not be fun and you may want to just get away from them at the time, but you show them you love them best by just listening to them and letting them spill their guts to you.  If you don’t know what to say after they are done telling you their problems, just reassure them.  “I know it looks bad, but everything is going to be okay.  I know it hurts, but the pain will eventually stop.  It’ll get better.” 

                Then ask them what they need from you.  Do they need a hug?  Do they want you to pray for them?  Do they need anything?  Let them tell YOU what they want from you.  Don’t just assume you know what they need.  If nothing else, pray for them and just show them kindness.  This doesn’t mean you have to show up on their doorstep and bring them food, and it certainly doesn’t mean that they want your money.  Often people think that giving someone money will help them feel better, but many times giving money to a hurting person just makes them feel worse.  If they say something like, “I desperately need money or my power is going to be shut off,” then offering them money, if you feel God is telling you to do so, would be fine in such a case.  However, I would err in the direction of not just throwing money at another person’s problems, even if their problems are money related.

                And whatever you do, do not scold or criticize a person who is hurting.  If they are going through something, the worst thing you can do is tell them that they are doing something wrong.  Now don’t get me wrong, if they are sinning it is okay to warn them, but it is the way you handle it that can be very hurtful to an already hurting person.

                For example, if you see your loved one hurting and they are starting to swear a lot, the worst thing to do is say, “Hey!  Watch your mouth!  You shouldn’t be swearing like that.  You’re a Christian.”  Listen…I tell you the truth, if they are a Christian the moment the swear words leave their lips they feel awful about it.  It only makes them feel worse about themselves and their situation. 

                Therefore, just don’t say anything.  Let them get it out.  Most of the time, a true Christian will even apologize afterwards for swearing.  Then, when you assure them that you aren’t offended, they will feel better because they had someone they could release their frustrations to who even gave them the liberty to sin and didn’t condemn them for it.  They will feel forgiven because you have been Christ to them, forgiving them of their sins.

                However, if you see a loved one taking drugs or starting to drink heavily to drown out their pain, that is something you should try to say something about…carefully.  Assure them, “you don’t need that stuff.  It’s only going to hurt you.  I’m here for you.”  If they get angry with you and lash out at you, take it as best you can.  Don’t yell back and scream at them and condemn them further.  They need reassurance and love, not anger and condemnation.  If they still don’t stop the destructive behavior, get help.  Find others who love that person.  Get them to help you intervene.  Seek a professional.  It’s not wrong to get help from someone who has been educated to handle situations like that.  Getting others to help shows that person that there are lots of people who love them who are there for them and want to keep them from hurting themselves. 

                Above all, one of the hardest things to do to show love for others is to let them make their own decisions and suffer the consequences for those choices.  Sometimes people just won’t listen to others and they are going to hurt themselves and others no matter what you say.  For those people, the only things you can do are watch and pray.  Trust God that somehow He will make it all work out for good in the end.  Show them love by gritting your teeth and bearing it, even as Jesus grit His teeth on the cross to bear your sins and mine.  And you know…you may just find that you weren’t right and they were!

                On the other hand, if you are hurting and a Christian, I encourage you to be careful!  You can be mad at God.  He’s a big boy.  He can take it.  You can even yell at Him and say how angry you are with Him.  You can curse and swear and drink and smoke and do whatever you want to do to ease your pain.  It won’t make you truly happy, mind you.  It will solve absolutely nothing.  You’ll wind up more miserable in the end, because sin NEVER heals you.  It provides you only a temporary solution…like a makeshift dirty bandage.  It makes you feel better at first, but in the end you wind up having your wound infected. 

                So although you can still be saved and get angry with God and swear and curse and drink and smoke, or whatever, you will only feel a bit of relief from your pain for a short time.  After that, the consequences of your sin set in and they cause you more pain, shame, guilt, and so forth.  Then you do more sin to try to alleviate that pain and guilt, but that only makes you feel worse again.  Then the cycle repeats itself over and over again.  Break the cycle!  Stop sinning and you’ll find that things only start getting better.

                Only Christ can heal some wounds.  All the swearing and drinking and smoking and drugs and sex, etc. will not.  Seek Christ out in prayer and go to church and seek out godly men and women who can help you through your time of pain and suffering.  This is why you need a good church family, if nothing else.  You need solid spiritual people who can help you endure what you are going through in a healthy way.

                So I repeat, just because you sin doesn’t mean you are going to Hell.  It doesn’t mean you don’t love Christ.  You can still be saved and be bitter and angry and hurt and suffering and swearing and drinking and doing drugs and so on and so forth.  You are hurting yourself and hurting Christ who lives in you, but you can do these things.  You will just find that these things will only hurt you and not help you and you’ll be worse off in the end because of it.  In other words, you aren’t moving towards a solution.  You’re just increasing the difficulty to get to a solution.

                And again, I will caution you.  There is a fine line here.  Sinning is like taking drugs or drinking alcohol.  Every time you sin you risk getting addicted to it.  Addictions can lead to backsliding.  Backsliding means you are becoming so caught up in sin that you reach the point, eventually, where you turn your back on God permanently.  You basically become so sick of the guilt that you decide that God’s got to go.  You care more about the sin than you do Jesus.  Therefore, if it is Jesus or the sin…well…bye, bye Jesus!

                Some believe that if you reach this point and say bye to Jesus that you are no longer saved.  Others believe that once you are saved you cannot lose your salvation.  This book will delve into this topic more heavily later.  Right now, let me just say that no matter which you believe, backsliding is a dangerous thing.  Regardless of whether you are still going to go to Heaven or not when you die, backsliding will only lead you to a crippling place in your life where you will find yourself miserable.  That which you once loved will become almost meaningless, and life will become almost like a bad dream that you just can’t shake.  It is never good to place anything above Christ.  The final result is misery.

                Backsliding is why so many Christians, when I was a kid, put such emphasis on fighting against sin.  Because they feared addiction to sin, and the potential of loved ones backsliding, they were hard on people whenever sin was discovered in their lives.  They didn’t want their loved ones going to Hell, so they put a lot of pressure on people to not sin at all.  The problem with this is that the focus then becomes all about conquering sin and not about Jesus.  Instead, people should focus on Jesus and let His Holy Spirit help you clean up your act.  Remember, Peter didn’t walk on water while he was looking at the waves crashing around at his feet.  It was only when he put his eyes on Jesus that he could walk on water.

                Therefore, please be careful.  Don’t let your pain turn you away from Christ.  You will regret it.  I encourage everyone, regardless of whether they are Christian or not, to avoid things like drugs, smoking, alcohol, sex outside of marriage, swearing, lude conversations and jokes (including messages via internet or phone), gossip, backbiting, being mean to others, and all such negative things.  Basically, if it is negative, it should be avoided.  These are sins and they do not bring you joy and happiness.  You think they are fun, but in the end they will destroy you, your family, someone you care about…or all of the above.

                And yes…even swearing can destroy you and others around you!  You think it is funny or fun or you just grew up swearing or whatever.  Be warned!  You may think this doesn’t hurt you or those around you, but it does.  It seems like such a small and petty thing to scold people for, and you may think it is harmless, but I’m seriously telling you that swearing is bad for you and those around you. 

                It is proven that negativity actually decreases a person’s health.  Positivity increases a person’s health.  The more negative you and those around you are, the more your health decreases.  The more positive you and those around you are, the more your health increases.  Look it up!  You’ll see I’m not making this up.

                Swearing is negative, no matter how you try to spin it.  Even if you use it for telling jokes, which is probably the biggest reason that people swear, it is negative joking.  It creates a negative atmosphere in whatever room you are in.  It also leads to other negative thoughts, such as perverted sexual acts.  Think about it!  Most swear words have to do with perverted sex.  The “F” word, the “B” word, the “A” word…and let’s face it…just about every swear can be used in creative ways, somehow, to relate it back in some dirty, sexual act.

                Talking about sex in a negative way leads people, in the end, to desire sex in a negative way.  Oh sure, there are plenty of examples of people who talk dirty and swear who don’t cheat on their spouses, molest children, look at porn, or whatever.  I’m not saying everyone who swears will do such things.  However, there is a rising tide of sexual issues throughout our world today, and we wonder why.  Sex is being poured into our minds from every avenue.  We hear it in people’s day to day language.  We see it pummeling us on TV screens, internet and movies.

                Every law of life teaches that what you take in affects you either positively or negatively.  If you take in healthy food you will have a healthy body.  If you eat junk food your body will start to wear out quickly.  If you watch or hear bad things all the time, you will start to think bad things all the time.  Why are people getting more and more perverted these days?  Sex is everywhere.  Even Christians are struggling to overcome it.  Divorce rates are climbing.  Why? 

                Christians aren’t even cutting these things out of their lives anymore.  They watch things where people are sleeping together, and the scenes they show are explicit…on regular TV…during times when kids can watch.  Parents are just letting their kids see these things.  Then they wonder why their kids are having sex at 13 or 14 years old, addicted to pornography and swearing like sailors.

                Which brings me to another issue with swearing.  Swearing is contagious, just like any sin.  The more you swear the more others will swear and the more you can’t help but swear.  Thus, swearing is like an infectious disease that will eventually harm your body, your attitude, your emotional and mental well-being, and it will do the same for all who come into contact with you. 

                I swore a lot during that dark time in my life.  I told a lot of dirty jokes too.  I even prided myself on my cleverness.  I could turn just about anything I saw into something dirty.  I thought I was being funny.  People laughed at my jokes and seemed to act like they liked me.  It was pretty obvious to me, though, that they only humored me and thought I was weird and perverted.  I was not very well liked.  People really didn’t want me around that much.  My self-esteem was in the toilet, and I hated my life.

                When I turned my life back to Christ I found it incredibly difficult to stop swearing and talking dirty.  I really had to work on it.  It took a long time of persistent effort and asking for God’s help.  I prayed a lot about it. 

                So trust me when I say, swearing is a sin, and it is hard to overcome.  Trust me also when I say that it does affect your mood and your attitude and your health.  I may have been young, but at that time I also had a lot of emotional and psychological issues.  I wanted to run away from home.  I wanted to commit suicide at times.  Swearing only helped to increase these issues.  It certainly didn’t make me feel better.

                You see, the Bible teaches that once you are saved, “all things are permissible.”  However, it immediately follows that teaching with, “all things are not expedient.”  This means that all things are not good for you.  Christ may forgive you for doing something that is a sin, but regardless of that, sin is still deadly.  It still hurts you.  It hurts others around you.  It still isn’t what you want to be if you are truly a Christian. 

                Therefore, avoid sin if you can.  As the Bible teaches, the consequence of “sin is death.”  If you fail to avoid sin and you are a Christian, just tell God you’ll do better next time and then try harder next time.  Allow your remorse to drive your actions so that you don’t do it again.  Don’t let sin wear you out or tear you down.  If you are saved, Christ has already forgiven you.  He has defeated sin.  Now it’s all about trying to live better not only for yourself but also for others.  It is about getting closer to Christ and becoming more like Him; not because you have to but because you WANT to.