WHY BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE
PART 1 of 8
TEST THE VALIDITY OF OUR FAITH
1) The first reason why bad things happen to good people is for us to know if we trust the LORD. Do you know that not everyone believes that God even exists? I know, crazy, right? That is where we have to start and stop listening to "experts" who are blind. Even Satan believes in God; he knows that God exists.
Our mission is to believe on God; to trust Him, to obey Him, to ask Him to guide us, to consult with Him when we are faced with a decision. God already knows our hearts. We are tested to assure ourselves of the validity of our faith. When we pray and expect our LORD to hear us and help us and we see His hand in our lives as we go through trials, we experience assurance, confidence, and hope.
Proverbs 17:3: The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the LORD tries the hearts.
When we are planted firmly in our faith in the LORD, we are fearless and confidence. Even if He doesn't save us from the trials and tribulations, we will praise Him; for to live is Christ and to die is gain. If not Him, then who will/can save us?
Back in Deuteronomy 8, as Moses gave the laws for His people before they were to cross over to the promised land, pay attention to verse 2:
1) All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD swore unto your fathers.
2) And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou would keep His commandments, or no.
(and here are some of the trials they experienced:)
3) And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knew not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that man does not live by bread only, but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live. (When they left Egypt, they had only the clothes they were wearing....no water, no food (or seeds or livestock), nothing.)
4) Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years. (The word for swell is "batsak", which means soggy or doughy. When used in the context regarding the feet, the meaning is that the pace of the feet did not slow due to fatigue for those forty years. I don't know about you, but when 40 years are added to my age, I slow down quite a bit! Also, their clothes did not wear out. The bottom line here is that the LORD took care of ALL of their needs, large and small. None of this happened "by chance". The LORD had stripped them down of all of their self-sufficiency to demonstrate that He is able to supply all of their needs AND He is faithful to do so.
4) Let's finish this part of our lesson with 1 Peter 6,7: 6) In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7) These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Genuine faith is priceless. We realize that we are no longer "of" this world when we get saved, but we are sojourning through it on our way home. If we can demonstrate the love and the saving power of our God on our journey, maybe we can take someone with us. Understand that there is nothing in this world worth your anxiety, anger, energy, etc. except to profess Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Can I get an amen? Let us be a reflection of The Light and be about our Father's business rather than trying to hold on to anything in this world.
If you don't know my Jesus, click here for more information: https://omaswisdom.blogspot.com/p/path-to-salvation.html.
As we have finished part one of Why Bad Things Happen To Good People, let me encourage you to invest a couple of dollars into John MacArthur's New Testament Commentary on 1 Peter. It seems that entire Book of the Holy Bible discusses our trials.
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