The Power of Pain
On Sunday morning at FGA, we had the privilege of having our marriage counselor, Pastor Dr Khoo Kay Hup give the message, which he titled “Fulfilling our responsibilities to God in spite of our pain.
Pastor Khoo chose the term “responsibilities to God” based on the two greatest commandments – Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. This is our foremost responsibility as a Christian, in spite of any circumstance that we are in.
In considering eternal life, we must understand that God is looking for a group of people who want to spend eternity with Him on His terms. If we were hosts to guests staying with us, there are certain terms that we also have. E.g. They are not to walk into the master bedroom. Likewise, those who are to stay with God must meet His conditions. Revelation 21:8 spells out what type of persons will not be able to be with God in the end.
8But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."
In every generation, the Lord is looking for people who want to serve Him, who will live according to His will. Our world today is the testing ground which will determine where we will spend eternity.
In Revelation, it is repeated again and again that we must overcome to inherit all things. Luke 9:62 states how we must not look back, but press forward in our journey to salvation. We must look at life and death through God’s eyes. As long as we live, we have opportunity to serve God. If we die, we rejoice that we may be with the Lord.
Pastor then gave four simple creeds on how to continue living as long as we have life:-
- Correct wrongs I did
- Repent and make restitution
- Live with a right attitude
- Live with eternity in mind
Our lives are an opportunity to bear fruit. Like the parable of the fig tree in Luke 13, God is patient and continues to wait for us to bear fruit. However, there will come a time when it has to be cut down.
In Hebrews it is written that it is appointed for a man to die once. After that comes judgment. We need to overcome our fear of death. Even when godly men die before their time, we need to understand that it could well be God’s mercy at work as stated in Isaiah 57:1
The righteous perish,
and no one ponders it in his heart;
devout men are taken away,
and no one understands
that the righteous are taken away
to be spared from evil.
and no one ponders it in his heart;
devout men are taken away,
and no one understands
that the righteous are taken away
to be spared from evil.
In 1999, 400 Christians were martyred in North Korea
In serving God, we are called to employ all our experiences – Family experiences, educational experiences, vocational experiences, spiritual experiences, ministry experiences and even painful experiences.
Our sacrifice of praise to God must cost us something. For Abraham, he was willing to sacrifice his only son. We need to ask ourselves what problems, hurts, thorns and trials have we learned from. In fact, God uses these experiences the most in our ministry. Quite often, our greatest ministry is from our greatest hurt. Don’t waste our pain. Who can better counsel than one who has gone through it. This brings to mind the powerful ministry of Pastor Richard Lee among the drug addicts, for he had suffered as one before.
In understanding our pain, we need to continue:-
(a) Praying – We grow more in pain than gain. We should be more afraid of our successes than failures
(b) Seeking – Psalm 23 was written during David’s darkest times. The hymn writer of the song “It is well with my soul” lost everything he loved yet still praised God. We must seek for people who can help us, not pity us.
(c) Staying in fellowship with godly people – As an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, we must not spend too much time alone in such times
(d) Helping others – The Word says that he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. There will always be someone richer or poorer, but we always will feel good when we help others.
In closing, Pastor Khoo reflected on the life of the great preacher and writer Charles Spurgeon who struggled with depression during most of his ministry. His most important breakthrough came when he said the prayer: It matters not what happens to Spurgeon and his name, only let Jesus be exalted. Amazingly, throughout his life, periods of great tragedy and depression always preceded a fresh visitation of power from the Lord.
This message opened my mind quite significantly in the area of pain and suffering. May it bless you do.
God bless,
Jason
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