Re: Faith in God

I'm sorry this response ended up so long.

I'll start here:

You said,

"You say that you know that Christ cannot overcome our internal suffering because it would be too difficult to believe in that possibility, but until you open yourself to that possibility, you haven't yet given Christ the chance to show you if it could be true or not."

No, I don't say that at all! I don't believe there is a single thing that is too difficult for Christ. And I believe he will do anything he says he will do.
Genesis 18:14
"Is anything too hard for the LORD?" No!

You said. "At the same time, if you don't believe that He can (and is meant to) come in and remove your internal suffering, then regardless of your faith in Christ, there is no possibility of Him doing so."

I don't believe this either. God can do whatever he wants to do. If he wanted to wipe out my internal suffering, he can do that. He doesn't need my permission or for me to believe something before he does it. God completely changed the apostle Paul before Paul had a clue what was happening. He didn't have to believe something first for God to do what he did. God just changed him, from a stubborn man that hated the gospel of Christ into one that loved it. He didn't ask his permission first or wait on him to do anything. This whole idea that so many people have that God is waiting on us is not what the bible says. The bible says God is all powerful, and can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and that he is going to accomplish is plan and purpose regardless of what anyone else does. We can't thwart his plan. So you saying there is no possibility of God doing something based on something I don't believe, is not true. Yes, God often works in us based on our desires. And no, he doesn't force us to love him, or drag us kicking and screaming. But he knows how to change our hearts, our desires, and our wills, to fit His. That's just how powerful He is! He's not a God that is wringing his hands up in heaven, waiting on us to make the moves. He makes the moves, he does what he wants, and we respond. We respond with belief, we respond with repentance, we respond in all kinds of ways, but they are responses not causes. God works, we respond, that's how it works, not the other way around. And until people come to realize God is sovereign, not us, they are going to go off the deep end in all kinds of ways with their theology. A sovereign, all-powerful God who has made a plan and is carrying out that plan to the nth degree, that is the God I believe in. Thank God I cannot thwart his plan one iota, even when his plan involves immense pain and suffering and I sometimes don't understand it at all.

Isaiah 46:10
Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.

Job 42:2
I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Ephesians 1:11
having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

Psalm 135:6
Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.

Isaiah 45:7

I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things.


You said,

"Let me put it another way,

You are in a battle for your life and you have not won that battle yet, and the only thing that allows you to endure is knowing that no one else has ever won the battle and the battle can never be won? How is that uplifting?

On the other hand, if you are in a battle for your life and you have not won that battle yet, and you know that it is possible to win the battle but you are just not there yet, doesn't that feel a better?

Christ has already won the battle. Christ is victorious over Sin, so why not in us."


Yes, Christ has already won the battle! "It is finished" he said when dying on the cross. I rejoice in the finished work of Christ on my behalf and know that he is my righteousness, he has saved me and given me an eternal inheritance and I have the Holy Spirit who is a deposit of that inheritance. No matter what I go through in life, Jesus is with me. The Holy Spirit is with me, and nothing can separate me from the love of Christ. These are glorious truths that are empowering.

I never said the battle can't be won with the flesh. I just said there is a battle with the flesh! I have said no one will ever reach perfection, as far as living a perfectly sinless life while in the flesh, because the bible says that.

1 John 1:8

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.


This is how I see it:

Say you are tempted to sin. But the new creation that is the real you says no, I'm not going to do that and you flee from the sin. Well, by the grace of God, you won that battle. But there will be more temptations to come, all the way to the end of your life. You will be battling everyday. The battle is part of the internal suffering. Battles are hard, tiring, not peaceful. Always having to fight is not fun. In the new heaven and earth, there will be no more temptations, there will be no possibility to sin whatsoever, there will be no more battle with the sinful flesh.

And then there are the times when we lose the battle with the flesh. If you can get to the point where that never happens to you, great. It still won't mean there's no battle though.

But in all honesty, I've never seen anyone reach sinless perfection. And I believe that is what 1 John 1:8 is saying. And it's when we sin, that the most internal suffering comes of course. But when we know it's the righteousness of Christ that makes us acceptable to God, and that is what we are trusting in instead of our own sinless perfection, that gives the strength and motivation to get back up and keep running the race and fighting the battle. When we know Christ has already won the battle, we already know the glorious ending, then we can continue to fight the battle with confidence even when it feels like we are losing at times.


So because of what Christ has done, Christians are not in bondage to sin. Because Christ is our righteousness, we are slaves to righteousness, not sin. Our hearts desires is for righteousness, not for sin.

We've already gone over this before but I will say what I believe on it again:

1 John 3:9
9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

If you are born of God, you are a new creation. You are a new creation that has the righteousness of Christ, not because of anything you have done, but because he imputed that righteousness to you based on His work alone, by grace alone:

2 Corinthians 5:21

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

As a new creation, we are perfect in Him! Our new identity in Christ cannot sin. Our new identity is sealed with the Holy Spirit, and He cannot sin. Our flesh can still sin, but not who we are as a new creation in Christ.

So that's why Paul says this in Romans 7:17

Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.


Romans 6 says:

17But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations.

All this can be a hard concept to understand because of our natural limitations, and that's why Paul adds that in verse 19.

So, as a new creation in Christ, perfect because of his imputed righteousness to us, we fight the battle of the flesh. And we grieve that awful flesh.

Romans 7:24

24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

So why do I find hope in this truth about the battle? Because it is the truth, and I don't have to go around wondering what in the world is wrong with me. And because I know that I must be prepared to fight and so I'm not so taken off guard by my flesh. The other way of believing is not hopeful because it tells me something is majorly wrong that should not be wrong if I could only have more faith. It's a lie! This flesh of mine is sinful and there is something wrong with that, but I know God is with me fighting the battle of the flesh, and I know that he has promised to remove this flesh one day. Who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to my Lord Jesus Christ, he will! And why is it a body of death? Because it's sinful! If I didn't have a body that was sinful, I'd never die!

You said,

"Though there may be sin inside of us and we have not yet won the battle, yet on the inside we believe that we have already won the battle because Christ has won the battle for us. "

Yes I believe this! This is our hope!

But then you said,
"Though there may be suffering on the inside, yet on the inside we believe that there is no suffering because Christ has already overcome and removed all suffering, in this world and the next."

This I don't believe. It sounds like the Word of Faith people that tell people to believe they have no cancer even if it shows up on all the tests because Christ has declared you to be free of cancer, and so they do that, and then they die because they really had cancer. It's a lie to deny suffering when there is really suffering. It doesn't do a bit of good to pretend it's not there.

We have sinful fleshes and suffering because of that. To deny that's real won't do a bit of good but cause us not to fight it, and have a lot of serious consequences like someone denying they have cancer.


You said,
"And once we are free from the darkness, we realize that it was all a bit silly because the darkness was never actually a real thing that was present, it is only the light that is real and actually exists."

Darkness is real! Satan is real! Sin is real! And suffering is real! These things are not figments of our imagination.

But yes, Christ is the light, and he has overcome all these things. That's where the hope lies! Not in pretending these things aren't real.

I'll end this with this:

In I John, Jesus said this:
33I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

He didn't say, "one day, if you can completely surrender to me and overcome the flesh, you won't have any tribulation anymore". No, he said, "In the world you will have tribulation". Period! But he assured us he has overcome the world. Most of the apostles and disciples died horrible deaths. Their suffering was real, not imaginary. I do believe by the time they died, they were very strong in their faith and very willing to suffer. But they were not always that strong. But even when they were strong in their faith, the suffering was still there, and no doubt some internal suffering too but they had great joy set before them that caused them to endure.
Jesus, even though he was perfect in every way, had real suffering too. The bible says he was a man of sorrows.

Hebrews 12:2
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

The word "endure" would not have been used there if there was no real suffering.

Isaiah 53:3
He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.