Why do bad things happen to me when all I do is follow Christ?

Christ suffered persecution, and so will who follow Him.

 

Many Christians today are discouraged by what's happening around them. I've heard stories of believers young and old about how they faced different kinds of hardship when all they did was to love God.

All they ever did was go to church, attend prayer gatherings, and be of service to their fellow believers and those who didn't know God. But still they faced hardship.

Perhaps, you might be one of them, a people who've had bad things happen to them when all they ever did was follow Christ. If you're one of them, I want to encourage you:

God knows what you are going through.

Don't be surprised

Friends, it's a fact that when we follow Christ, we will do nothing but what is good and pleasing to God. We will love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. We will love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

That sounds great, but the truth is that not everyone loves God. And because not everyone loves God, everyone won't love their neighbors as themselves.

So, don't be surprised when you are persecuted, ridiculed, mocked, and even rejected for following the Lord Jesus Christ. Actually, it's an honor to go through all of it if it's for the sake of the Lord:

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:10-12 NKJV)

Why will they persecute me?

To help you understand why we shouldn't be surprised that persecution or all sorts of bad things happen to us even when all we do is follow Christ, here are some things to consider.

1) We have an enemy

As Christ-followers, we must realize that we are at war. We have an enemy, and even if he was already defeated and disarmed by the Lord Jesus Christ (see Colossians 2:15), he will still try to harass us. Ephesians 6:12 tells us,

"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."

2) Our Lord Jesus Himself was persecuted

In John 15, the Lord Jesus Himself warns us that persecution is coming to us. Why? Read what He said:

"Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also."

3) To refine us and prepare us

You might not want to hear this, but hardship is very important to our walk with Christ. Everyone who chooses to follow Jesus must count the cost of following Him, and that cost includes being willing to suffer and go through difficult times for His sake.

Consider these passages:

"And when [Paul and Barnabas] had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, "We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God."" (Acts 14:21-22)

"So [the apostles] departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name." (Acts 5:40-41)

Be prepared

Friends, I am not scaring you. I want to encourage you to be steadfast and prepare yourself for whatever comes. God loves us, and wants us ready for anything. Remember what 2 Timothy 3:12 tells us and be honored if you face hardship while following Christ.

"Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution."

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THE NIGERIAN GREAT INDEPENDECE DAY

With gratitude to God Almighty, I the admin of Gozpelworld, wish to congratulate the whole Nigerians happy independence, today been the 1st of October 2017, Nigeria did not celebrate independence but really they also celebrate the peace and unity of it's great Nation.

Nigeria celebrates her 57th independence.

Today, I am so happy that our Hausa brothers and sisters really mean to unite and make peace with not just the Igbo's but with the whole country at large. it's no longer news that quit notice giving to the Igbo's was suppose to be expired on the last day of September, but as God will have it, just as the word of God will tell us; the peace i give you, the world cannot give.

                                                         Happy Birthday Nigeria.

This celebration is not only for me, but for the whole Nigerian, both home and abroad, may God who has given us this peace, give us Joy, happiness, and continue to shower his blessings upon us, may he never let war prevail against us, war is not for Nigeria, we have lived in peace for so many years, war does not say who is right but it says who is left, God bless you all. Amen

#Long live Federal Republic of Nigeria

#Long live Nigerians

#Long live Gozpelword

#Long live All.

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On telling the truth – and shaming the devil

I have to admit that there's one place in the gospels where, despite Jesus' critique of them, I do have some sympathy for the Pharisees. In Matthew 16:3 Jesus castigates them for failing to read the signs of the times. I have some sympathy with them because those signs of the times aren't always that easy to read. We live in a rapidly changing world that seems to be increasingly unstable and uncertain. Just what is going on?

In Church Mission Society – and indeed in the Church as a whole – we have to be students of the times in which we live. Good practice in mission is always shaped by context. We have to ask, 'How can we faithfully follow Jesus in this place and at this time?' The principle of incarnation always forces us to ask that question.

There is one sign of the times which I want particularly to highlight, because in truth it's critical for mission. But before doing so I ought to say that I'm concentrating on a western phenomenon, which may not apply in every global context – though I suspect that its influence will be felt far afield. But, that said, here in the West, truth, as a concept, is increasingly undervalued. That's particularly ironic in a culture founded on the triple pillars of the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment.

It's ironic, but nonetheless true. We hear a lot today about 'fake news' and 'alternative facts'. Just a couple of weeks the head of the UK statistics agency had to take the Foreign Secretary to task for continuing to overestimate radically the amount the UK pays to the EU. Not long before that the President of the United States was roundly condemned for a selective re-telling of his own words following the demonstrations and death at Charlottesville.

In truth we should not be surprised. At New Wine this year Michael Lloyd, Principle of Wycliffe Hall suggested that when a culture turned its back on the one true God and embraced many 'gods' then multiple versions of the truth would emerge. And so we see.

But lest we think it's only 'out there' I fear we fool ourselves. Not many weeks ago a prominent Christian website reported General Synod as having taken a decision that it in fact had not done.

I fear we're witnessing a phenomenon in which a number of overarching narratives are being constructed (whether that's to deny climate change, or to assert constant 'liberal slippage' in the church) and the facts are then manipulated to fit. So no longer does truth define the narrative; the narrative defines truth – or what purports to be truth.

But how do we react? If I'm honest I feel a good of outrage at the blatant peddling of falsehoods. But what good is my outrage to anyone else? (And what good does it do to me?!). There is, I am sure, a better way.

Paul tells the Ephesians to 'speak the truth in love' so that we will 'grow up in every way into Christ the head' (Ephesians 4:15). So we need to be uncompromising speakers of truth: 'Tell the truth and shame the devil' runs the old adage, and there's a lot of truth in that, not least as he is, in Jesus' words, 'the Father of lies' (John 8:44).

But that is not enough. We're to 'speak the truth', yes. But we're to do so 'in love'. And not doing so is not an option.

That does not water down our commitment to truth. Not at all: we're to be 100% people of truth. But we're to be 100% people of love as well, with no compromise on either side of the equation.

Our commitment to truth and love must be complete and uncompromised. It is so in Jesus and must be nothing less so in those who seek to serve him. Jesus was not a constructor of a convenient narrative: he fearlessly followed his Father's will, and did not count the cost in so doing. So must those who would be his disciples.

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Four bad reasons to be kind to other people

Why are you kind? Why do you serve and demonstrate love to other people? Of course, the 'right' answer – certainly if you're a Christian – is that as follower of Christ you simply want to replicate his example. And even if you're not, there are definitely times when you decide to act kindly just because you want to be kind – because you're a nice person.

If we're really honest though, that's not always the case. Sometimes, our motives for being kind to other people are a little more mixed than that. It seems to me that there are a number of other possible reasons behind our desire to serve others. And while none of these reasons prevent good works from being accomplished, or people from benefiting from kind acts, they're not actually the type of kindness that Jesus calls us to in the gospels.

In Mark 9 v 35, Jesus invites us to become 'the very last... and the servant to all'. The kindness that he models (through washing the feet of his disciples and more) is one of submission and service to everyone around us - from our closest friends to the people we find most difficult. Jesus asks that we love one another for no other reason except that he is calling us to do it. So here are four other reasons why we might choose to be kind which – while they still might result in good being done – aren't directly following that example.

Kindness... because of how it makes me feel

Sometimes we decide to do a good thing for someone else because of how it makes us feel inside. We enjoy the warm fuzzy feelings of helping another person who is less fortunate than ourselves, whether that's by donating something we no longer need, giving a bit of money away, or helping an old lady to cross the road. There's nothing wrong with those things per se, or even the feelings of warmth and pleasure we get from serving another person. Sometimes though what we're really doing here is assuaging our own guilt about the privileges we enjoy. If you're wealthy, giving a bit of money away doesn't really involve any sacrifice; if you've finished with your old baby clothes, then handing them to a new mum comes at no cost to you. Again, none of these things are bad things to do – but if we're using them as a way of feeling better about ourselves, then that's not pure, Christ-like kindness.

Kindness... because other people are watching

I was once walking along with a well-known worship leader near to where I worked at the time. Ahead of us, slumped in the doorway of a cafe, I saw the figure of a homeless man who I had passed hundreds of times before. In all those occasions, I may have stopped to buy him a coffee twice. This time however, I knew the well-known worship leader was watching. I stopped us in front of the man, engaged him in warm conversation, and bought him a sandwich from the cafe. I hoped the well-known worship leader would be impressed, and tell other famous worship leaders of this extraordinary Christ-like kindness that he had witnessed. Perhaps on some level I hoped he would write a song about me, or at the very least add me to the sleeve notes of his next album. Neither of these things happened.

In Matthew 6 v 1, Jesus says, 'Be careful not to practise your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.' He knew what he was talking about, and I had totally failed that test. We all have an innate desire to impress others, to be thought of as good and moral people. Yet if this becomes the motivation for our kind acts, then we're not truly kind, but a bit manipulative.

Kindness... because of what we might get in return

Then sometimes, we actually have quite selfish motives for being kind. There are situations and occasions where we know that if we do something, we'll get something in return. We basically put ourselves in someone else's debt, so that at some point they'll pay us back. As a child, I learned that it was much more profitable for me to be helpful around the house, or to offer to wash the car or mow the lawn in the week directly after my father had been paid. A week earlier, and all I'd get was a word of thanks and a ruffle of the hair. If I was 'kind' when my dad was flush with cash, I might get a couple of pounds for my trouble.

Yes, I was an abhorrent child, and was subsequently washed in the redeeming blood of Christ in order that I might slowly become transformed into the bastion of virtue you now see before you. But my hunch is that lots of us still do this sort of thing, if in slightly less machiavellian ways. Offering to babysit for someone so that they'll feel obliged to return the favour, or even – and let's be honest, we've all done this – buying a round early so that it won't be your turn when more people arrive. This isn't kindness for its own sake, but for ours.

Kindness... for strategic reasons

Then as Christians, known as we are for our fabulous do-gooding (a double-edged insult if ever there was one), we even theologise our mixed motives. Sometimes we behave kindly for strategic reasons, serving others in order that they might realise there is something different about us, and begin to ask questions. In fact, there have been a number of huge social action missions in the UK over the last 15 years which all had this central idea at their heart. Young Christians descend on a town or city, and begin clearing gardens, painting walls and putting on 'fun days' for the local community. None of these things are bad, and all offer an opportunity to love and serve others. The problem is when our kindness is only offered because we're hoping for a particular response from those who receive it. Strategic kindness is still loving others on our terms.

I also realise that quite often, we just do kind things because we're kind people. But I use these examples to illustrate what Christian service ISN'T.

It's not about feeling good about ourselves

It's not about looking good in front of other people

It's not about what you might get in return

It's not even about being strategically kind so that people might respond.

Christian service is simply enacting the Big Idea of the Kingdom of God – where everyone looks out for and cares for everyone else – and an act of worship and obedience to Jesus. In fact, in some way it's also an act of service to Jesus himself. In Matthew 25, he famously says, 'truly I tell you whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine you did for me.' As Graham Kendrick once wrote in his song The Servant King: 'Let us learn how to serve... each other's needs to prefer, for it is Christ we're serving.'

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How to pray in your darkest times

On one of the worst days of my life I strode out of the house and over the hills.

It was summer. The sun was warm and pleasant, the sky was a pleasingly deep shade of blue and there was a gentle breeze.

But although it was such a beautiful day, I felt shrouded in darkness as I walked. The relentless pressure from seemingly impossible circumstances was taking its toll. I felt like the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins who once wrote: 'O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall – frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed.'

The agony of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane as he faced the imminent prospect of his own crucifixion must have been far worse of course. And yet – somehow – in that valley of the shadow of death, Jesus managed to pray.

As we continue our fortnightly pilgrimage through Mark's gospel we stand upon holy ground as we see Jesus throwing himself on the earth (Mark 14:35) and praying in agony. What can we ourselves learn from how he prayed?

1. He asked his friends to support him. Mark notes that Jesus takes with him Peter, James and John (v33) – no doubt because he wished for their company and their help. But he quickly found out – when his friends fell asleep – that they could not be relied upon. And we, too, may rightly seek help from others. But we also may do well to remember that even the best-intentioned human friends may let us down in our greatest time of need.

2. He spoke intimately with God. 'Abba, Father,' Jesus begins his prayer (v36), using the Aramaic word which always denotes intimate affection and devotion. Jesus remembered that however painful his situation was, he could speak to God not as some distant impersonal force and still less as a hostile, uncaring deity – but rather as his heavenly father. And so can we.

3. He remembered God's sovereignty. The first thing he says to God is, 'For you all things are possible'. We can only pray because God is sovereign – God is the King who reigns. Ultimately God is in control – even when evil seems to have the upper hand, we don't understand what he is doing and it is incredibly painful. It is the recognition that with God all things are possible that drives us to prayer in the first place.

4. He said what he wanted. 'Remove this cup from me' is what Jesus boldly asks. That's quite a request. On one level it is perfectly understandable: no-one would want to go through the excruciating pain of crucifixion. On another level, it is the salvation of the world about which we are talking here and yet – extraordinarily – Jesus is able to say clearly that he would like the cup to be removed. I can see no reason why we cannot be completely open and honest with God about exactly what we would like too.

5. He submitted himself to God's will. Having stated what he wants, Jesus then adds: 'Yet not what I want, but what you want,' (v36). True prayer always seeks to align itself with the will of God, recognising that, 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God's ways higher than our ways and His thoughts than our thoughts,' (Isaiah 55:9).

It's sobering to realise that the answer to Jesus' prayer was 'no'. The cup was not removed from him. Our agonies will never approach his, for none of us will have to bear the sins of the world. And yet as Tom Wright comments: 'If even Jesus received that answer – no – to one of his most heartfelt prayers, we should not be surprised if sometimes it's that way for us too.'

My prayers on the hills on that bleakest, darkest sunlit day were not answered with a 'yes' at once either. And yet, looking back, I can see God was doing things I could never have imagined at the time. Moreover there have been times since when I have seen God answer prayer with breath-taking specificity in wildly improbable ways. Prayer is not about putting money in a slot machine and getting chocolate out of the bottom. It's about a relationship with a God who may well take us through pain to accomplish things well beyond our mental horizon.

As Robert Velarde has written: 'When Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, "Yet not as I will, but as You will," He offered a tremendous but seemingly simple insight into prayer: God is in charge.' And so as I go through my day today I pray simply: 'Lord, keep me in the centre of your will – even when I don't know what it is.' Amen.

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Pope Francis to world leaders: 'listen to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor'

Pope Francis has called for world leaders to 'listen to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor', ahead of tomorrow's World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, which will feature a joint statement with Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Bartholomew I.

On Friday Pope Francis will release an ecumenical statement with the Orthodox Church about caring for the environment.

Pope Francis said yesterday that a full message about the importance of environmental care, from both him and 'our dear brother Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople', would be released Friday, according to Vatican Radio.

'In [the message],' the pontiff said, 'we invite all to assume a respectful and responsible attitude towards Creation.'

He added that they 'also appeal, to all who occupy influential roles, to listen to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor, who suffer most from ecological imbalances.'

The Pope instituted September 1 as the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation in the Catholic calendar in 2015, in an ecumenical move that joined the Orthodox Church – which has marked the day since 1989.

Pope Francis has frequently made humanity's relationship to the environment a central theme of his pontificate. In 2015 he released the major encyclical Laudato Si, in which the pope called for a committed fight against global warming to protect 'our common home'. In 2016, Francis proposed adding care for the natural world to the seven 'works of mercy' Catholics are meant to perform.

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Is God angry? If so, why?

We don't like to think of God being angry, do we?

After all, the New Testament declares that 'God is love' – and that instinctively sounds rather appealing. The idea of the Lord being angry in some way is something from which we might well instinctively recoil. It also doesn't feel very appealing in terms of marketing God to your average spiritual sceptic in this day and age!

But when we read the teaching of Jesus we have to conclude that, yes, God indeed does experience anger – or 'wrath' to use the word that the Bible seems to prefer. And as we continue our fortnightly pilgrimage through Mark's gospel, Jesus helps us understand what that means – and what it doesn't mean too.

As he approaches his crucifixion, Jesus falls to the ground in the Garden of Gethsemane and prays, 'Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want,' (Mark 14v36).

We might think that 'the cup' is simply a figure of speech relating to the suffering Jesus knows he will endure on the cross; after all, in contemporary English we use another piece of crockery as simple metaphor, saying we have a lot 'on our plate' – albeit in the rather less serious context of saying how busy we are.

But Jesus' disciples would have known 'the cup' was not just a colloquialism. For as Jeremy McQuoid writes, 'The cup was an Old Testament motif pointing to the wrath of God, used in the context of exiles when God poured His wrath out on decadent, sinful Jerusalem by allowing Babylonian invaders to tear the holy city apart.' And Donald English, former chair of the World Methodist Council, comments: 'The cup, in a number of Old Testament passages, is about suffering and punishment, usually at God's hand.'

For example, in Jeremiah 25 we find God saying, 'Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath.' And Isaiah 51 speaks of those who have 'who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath'.

Still not convinced? Think of it this way: there are three basic options when we consider the way the universe is. Perhaps there is no God – and so the cosmos is a place in which, ultimately, evil doesn't matter, and those who get away with wickedness in this life will never, ever be held accountable. Or maybe, secondly, there is a God – but he doesn't really care about right and wrong at all.

The third option is that there is a God and he does care about justice and injustice. And that's the Christian view of things. In fact, God cares so much about these things that when he sees oppression, injustice and violence his reaction is one of anger. The Church of England's funeral liturgy describes God as 'justly angered by our sins'.

The problem is that our anger is often rather hot-headed, cruel and unfair. Sometimes we are simply taking out our own failings on others. But God's wrath is not like that at all. The Anglican theologian J.I. Packer writes in his classic Knowing God: 'God's wrath in the Bible is never the capricious, self-indulgent, irritable, morally ignoble thing that human anger so often is. It is, instead, a right and necessary reaction to objective moral evil.' And another Anglican theologian, Ian Paul, cites Stephen Travis in Christ and the Judgement of God speaking of the wrath of God as 'an attitude rather than a feeling' and Michael Green describing it 'as God's settled opposition to all that is evil'.

Perhaps all this sounds rather abstract. But we need to be clear that God is justly angry about evil, oppression, injustice and sin – including mine and yours – and that 'the cup of God's wrath' is a motif the Bible uses to speak of his reaction.

And then perhaps we will just begin to understand the magnitude of what Jesus is struggling with in the Garden of Gethsemane. For he knows – with a wide-eyed clarity we can scarcely comprehend – that on the cross he is going to drink that cup himself, even though he has done nothing to deserve it, so that we don't have to.

Steven Lee, a pastor at College Church, Wheaton, Illinois, puts it so well: 'Jesus drank the cup of God's wrath for us so that he could extend the cup of God's fellowship to us... We don't get wrath anymore – now we get God. We get the sweet, satisfying reality of his eternal fellowship in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit. This is the cup we drink now and forever. This is the cup that we offer to those who don't know him yet, imploring them in God's mercy: Come, drink this cup with us – because Jesus drank that cup for us.'

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