“Pain can do more that hurt; it can teach you the boundaries between right and wrong spiritual decisions.”
God has given us pain to protect us, not only from physical harm, but from spiritual harm. Romans 6:23 tells us that the penalty of sin is death.
- Every time we sin, some level of death results.
- How many times will you suffer the pain of violating God’s standard of telling the truth before you stop telling lies?
- How many times will you suffer the pain of sexual sin before you begin living in purity?
- How many times will you endure the pain of disobedience to God until you learn the lessons that pain is trying to teach, or the boundaries pain is trying to enforce?
- God gave you pain to protect you from sin.
Pain is designed to bring you to the Father for help in time of need.
- In fact, if you find yourself living a self-destructive life, it may be an indication that your relationship with God is distant – if it exists at all.
- The closer your relationship with God, the less self-destructive your life will be.
Sin brings physical, emotional, and spiritual pain – a reminder to avoid behavior that hurts not only us but God’s heart as well.
- Our responsibility is to allow our pain to bring us to Him for comfort.
- Pain can do more than hurt; it can teach you the boundaries between right and wrong spiritual decisions. And it can keep you from future mistakes.
Re-source: Reveal
make (something) known to humans by divine or supernatural means
What do you think your pain is teaching you to and what further pain is your suffering protecting you from?
- It’s time to let Jesus speak directly to your pain – dealing with the cause, and not the symptoms.
- Write down some unhealthy way you (or others) escape from your pain.
- Through drinking? Cursing? Overeating?
- Now write down alternative ways to deal with pain.
- When you feel pain today, commit to doing something in the second list.
We must first be committed to who we are, the people God made us to be.
- You cannot let pain, or the people and circumstances causing your pain, define you.
- If we remain committed to who we are in spite of the pains of life that come our way, we will walk through them, and do something significant in the world.
When you experience pain, you have two response options. They are both directly related to how you define yourself.
- First, you can allow the negative nature of pain caused by rejection, tragedy, or misfortune to define you as weak, as a failure, or as not good enough.
- The second potential response to pain is to define yourself as a courageous victor by identifying yourself as belonging to God.
God wants the overflow of His love in your life to fall onto as many people as possible.
- Jesus embraced pain on behalf of the world. So should we.
craving and resource from “Do Something!” by Miles McPherson
