In our study of suffering we last time we looked at evidence testing and ended with the principle that God has provided solutions for all categories of suffering but the performance of miracles by people and petitionary prayer stand out as non-solutions in the post-Canon period of the Church Age.
For God miracles are easy because they only involve His sovereignty. It is easy for the sovereignty of God to utilize His omnipotence to perform a miracle.
Nothing is easier, because it requires only His own sovereignty. No other volition is required. Miracles do not require positive volition or any function of man's free will they only require the sovereignty of God.
To provide solutions and answers and blessings that involve our volition is much more difficult for the sovereignty of God because this requires our free will choice for the perception of doctrine so that our requests align with his directive will.
This requires both our understanding of doctrine and the compliance of our volition with the Protocol plan for the church. For God to bless us in compatibility with his integrity requires our fulfillment of certain mechanical functions in the protocol plan of God, all of which depend upon our PMA of Bible doctrine.
Prayer is not a problem-solving device for the petitioner's suffering. It is a weapon for the strong believer to use on behalf of others who are suffering. As a royal priest, you can and are commanded to intercede for others, but the believer does not pray for his own strength in time of suffering.
This means that while intercessory prayer for others is a problem solving device petitionary prayer for yourself is not. The believer in spiritual childhood derives strength for the suffering with the faith-rest drill and the other Divinely provided problem solving devices.
The spiritual adult derives strength from providential preventative suffering combined with spiritual self-esteem. The only exception is the use of rebound in prayer.
It is a wrong solution to pray for the removal of suffering, especially when God specifically designs the suffering for our blessing and advance. It is also a wrong application of doctrine to pray for strength in suffering, since strength automatically comes when the believer applies Bible Doctrine under the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit according to the protocol plan of God. 1Cor 1:18,24; Rom 1:16;
The correct solution for sin and suffering cause by sin is rebound.
The correct solution for suffering during spiritual childhood is the combination of metabolized doctrine and the faith-rest drill.
The correct solution for suffering during spiritual adulthood is spiritual self-esteem plus providential preventative suffering that equals spiritual autonomy. Spiritual autonomy plus momentum testing that equals spiritual maturity and spiritual maturity plus evidence testing that equals glorification of God.
For personal failures that occur, the believer is challenged to apply the doctrine of Phil 3:13-14; "Forgetting those things which are behind, I press on."
There is suffering for blessing for all believers who use rebound regularly, and when someone maligns or gossips against them.
Nothing is greater than suffering for blessing, because it determines your capacity for life. God's plan is for you to use His grace system of problem solving and to have blessing and tranquility while simultaneously enduring the greatest problems and difficulties in life that arise from the chaos of the devils' world.
This attitude is exhibited by David in Psa 23:4; "Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I cannot fear evil, for You are with me (occupation with Christ)."
Dying is often considered to be the ultimate form of suffering. Once you understand what the protocol plan of God teaches you about death, you can learn how to live. If you know how to die, you know how to live. One's capacity for death is an indicator of one's capacity for life.
When you understand God's plan, there's no fear of death, because death is not your problem, it is simply a matter of how the perfect integrity and sovereignty of God has determined you will die and God gives every believer enough time in life to learn this information.
Just as your life can be full of tranquility and happiness, so can your death be. There is just as much happiness in dying as in living. There's pain in both, so the issue is not pain. The issue is your mental attitude and your spiritual growth from Bible doctrine.
David calls death a shadow because he wasn't actually dying at that moment; it was something that was to come in the future. David knew how to live, because he was a believer who was functioning in spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity.
Even when he was suffering from the rebellion of his son Absalom that was the fourth installment of his discipline for the Bathsheba/Uriah event, David recognized his banishment to be suffering for blessing.
David also had true courage, for he "could not" fear anything. It wasn't a matter of choosing to not fear and bolstering up his courage. He did not fear because you can't have that much doctrine in your soul and be frightened because of a sudden change of circumstances.
The believer who doesn't know how to die doesn't know how to live. He doesn't have the faith-rest drill, confidence from doctrine or any of the doctrinal rationales up and running in his stream of consciousness.
Since dying is the ultimate in suffering, if you have tranquility and happiness at the thought of dying, you will have tranquility and happiness in living. If dying can't get to you, living can't get to you.
Suffering for blessing is designed to teach you from the protocol plan of God how to live and how to die. When the two are put together you have cognitive invincibility.
Paul expresses this in Phil 1:20-21; "According to my intense concentration and resultant hope that in nothing shall I be disgraced, but with all integrity (virtue-love as problem solving device) even now, as always, Christ shall be glorified in my body (his experience in this life) whether by life or by death.
v21 For me, living is Christ, dying is profit (gain, advantage, blessing from spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity)."
When he wrote this, Paul was speaking from spiritual autonomy and he was close to spiritual maturity. Paul begins by telling us to live by concentrating on doctrine. A thought can make or break you but as we have seen we are to bring every thought captive to Christ. By making doctrine his highest priority, he advanced to spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy and spiritual maturity.