Quotes About Suffering

H]ealing displays the works of God in John 9, and sustaining grace displays the works of God in 2 Corinthians 12. What is common in the two cases is the supreme value of the glory of God. The blindness is for the glory of God. The thorn in the flesh is for the glory of God. The healing is for his glory, and the non-healing is for his glory. Suffering can only have ultimate meaning in relation to God.

The global scope and seriousness of the coronavirus is too great for God to waste. It will serve his invincible global purpose of world evangelization. Christ has not shed his blood in vain. And Revelation 5:9 says that by that blood he ransomed "people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation." He will have the reward of his suffering. And even pandemics will serve to complete the Great Commission.

God's passion to be glorified and our passion to be satisfied are one experience in the Christ-exalting act of worship—singing in the sanctuary and suffering in the streets.

We are kidding ourselves when we romanticize death as the climax of a life well lived. It is an enemy. It cuts us off from all the wonderful pleasures of this world. We call death sweet names only as the lesser of evils. The executioner that delivers the coup de grace in our suffering is not the fulfillment of a longing, but the end of hope. The longing of the human heart is to live and to be happy.

knowing that the same sovereignty that could stop the coronavirus, yet doesn't, is the very sovereignty that sustains the soul in it.

faith has tasted the glory of God in Christ and treasures it enough that the fullness of it is worth waiting for and suffering for. Faith has seen the truth that part of Christ's glory is his trustworthiness. Therefore, faith can cast itself on the promise of Christ and trust that the fullness of glory and the fullness of joy will surely come.

Of all the books which can be put into your hands, those which relate the labors and suffering of good men are the most interesting and instructive.

In other words, the path to glory for God's incarnate representative on earth was the path through suffering. The path to majesty was through meekness. The path to exaltation was through humility. The path to power was through weakness.

So when you hold the "Institutes" of John Calvin in your hand, remember that theology, for John Calvin, was forged in the furnace of burning flesh, and that Calvin could not sit idly by without some effort to vindicate the faithful and the God for whom they suffered. I think we would, perhaps, do our theology better today if more were at stake in what we said.

God gets glory when two very different and very imperfect people forge a life of faithfulness in the furnace of affliction by relying on Christ.

So my prayer for this book is that God would stand forth and reassert his Creator-rights in our lives, and show us his crucified and risen Son who has all authority in heaven and on earth, and waken in us the strongest faith in the supremacy of Christ, and the deepest comforts in suffering, and the sweetest fellowship with Jesus that we have ever known.

In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong" (Job 1:22, RSV).

Suffering for Jesus is temporary. Pleasure in Jesus is eternal.

For Jesus, the demand for joy is a way to live with suffering and to outlast suffering.

What is needed is a miracle. I mean that literally. A supernatural in-breaking of God through the gospel of Christ. It is not even possible to describe the hope-filled relational dynamics that may happen when the gospel explodes in two hearts that bring such radically different experiences of sin and suffering to the relationship.

The road to heaven is a hard road, but it is not joyless.

Physical pain is God's trumpet blast to tell us that something is dreadfully wrong in the world.

Christians are being martyred across the globe at alarmingly increasing rates. The 'Voices of the Martyrs' website reveals just how serious this killing of our brothers and sisters in Christ has become.

No one knows, and few conceive, the agony of mind that I have suffered from the time that I was made by circumstances, and not by my volition, a candidate for the Presidency till I was dismissed from that station by the failure of my election.

Eventually, if enough masses are said and prayers uttered, the soul may pass from purgatory into Heaven. But that is not taught in the Bible. It is based on a doctrine of salvation by works and by the church instead of redemption by the blood of Christ. It is used to extort money from those who hope to shorten the period of suffering of their loved ones that they may the sooner enter Heaven.

I remember him, already a defeated old man, getting up before dawn to face the unmusical reality of soiled bloody dressings.)

Her family threw her out, years ago; they even offered to pay her to stay away." She added proudly: "But Kathy wouldnt take their money. Shes lived in a little hellhole in the Quarter ever since then—on her own . Ã¢â'¬Â¦ Those blackouts she has— Ã¢â'¬Â¦ Shes dying," she said abruptly.

From the street, I looked up into the apartment buildings, into the naked windows of the tiny cubicle-rooms. More haggard faces peering blankly; skinny, maimed bodies of uncaring women in slips; men without shirts. All have the same look: the look of nolonger-questioning, resigned doom. The world on its knees. Ã¢â'¬Â¦

You can rot here without feeling it.