Maybe it's because bad things happen to all people, and if anything, that is exactly what God has promised us as believers. He will not give us more than we cna bear, but I think at times it sure will come close! The importance of matter is that we believe and trust God in spite of it all. Jesus was all man and all God, He was not part-man or part-god, He had to learn who He was as a Son of God, being made perfect through His suffering! How can Jesus who was perfect be made more perfect through His suffering? The fact is that we move fro faith to faith in our belief of God, our trust deepens as we recognise our need for God and revelation from Him in all that we go through. Jesus had to trust God in His life as well as His death, He had to trust that He was Son of God in spite of His creation rejecting Him and He had to trust God through suffering of cross, to know that His death would be worth it. Jesus had no guarantee thatHis life would be happy, but He knew that His life would be worth it.

Jesus saw through cross to life that it would give to mankind. Jesus death is a place fo life and death, in fact it is where they meet. In our suffering too, we have a joining of our death, frailty and weakness with God's raighteousness, salvation and eternity in us.

Job in same way had to go through what He did before He finally saw that God He had only heard rumour of, he could now see and know intimately. It is in our suffering that we are most dependant on our life in Christ, for our life is hid with Christ in God.

Suffering is not from God, but it does reveal to us where our dependancy is and is a good test of character. It is also where our faith is tested. Allow God's life to meet you at your point of greatest suffering, it might be a relationship, a sickness, a death or a situation, but in everything, greater is He that is in you than anything that can come against you and ultimately, just as in Jesus, your will be more than a conqueror.

Also since God is an innovator and His creativity knows no bounds, both form and content of our vocations should be developed by those of us who partake of His life. Thus we can improve, adapt and innovate in our work to make it more fruitful and more useful. Techniques in so called "secular advances" can be implemented without sin, a Christian designer looks to new designs and material, not scripture necessarily, to develop his craft. A Christian car manufacturer seeks to develop best car using best materials on offer. On other hand a Christian doctor should protest any requirement for him to perform an abortion as part of his vocation under God. This is criteria for knowing redeemable and non-redeemable aspects of a culture. The paradox of divine nature dwelling in a human believer with an unrenewed mind and God's principles in each domain of society. The idea that Christ lives in you, though you still fail, and are above law, yet obey law in your daily vocation, protesting where it becomes necessary to uphold God's glory.

This view avoids self-righteous separatism on one side and double-minded irresponsibility on other. It affirms any earthly calling as not in itself sinful, and secular techniques can be embraced in so far as they affirm word of God. Temporal authority should be respected and tyrannical leadership endured provided it is instituted by God, though not without protest from within one's vocation (the role of suffering servant); but when government is by nature directly opposed to Christ it must be resisted, even with force. Reform and innovation are considered good, so long as fruits it bears are good and demonstrate love of God. We need to be aware of God's transforming nature as well as Satan's degrading nature in world. Where word is revealed in truth and faithfulness transformation of culture will occur through individual members of body of Christ. You cannot make men good through law but good society is impossible without good men. There is enough evidence today in world to prove that law acting on people without any inner transformation struggles to control anyone, but where two are held in tension, Christ in us expressed as us, we find a force for change, within and without.

This option also reminds us of our humility and humanity in Christ and our failings and predisposition to sin, as well as shattering any dreams of any kind of utopian society on earth. While at same time denying ourselves and taking up our vocations and following Christ through costly witness, and protest and a willingness to allow our lives to be cross that Christ hangs upon to glory of God.

Ultimately cross is where life and death meet and Christ and humanity are reconciled. This is where Christ and culture collide, through Christ in you, as you. Where Christ and culture collide. ________________________________________

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