I know now that EVERYTHING has purpose in God's plan

why am I going through these difficult times if God does love me is there some kind of meaning behind suffering and struggles in the world I grew up in Johannesburg South Africa my mother was Jewish and my dad was of Dutch origins when I was quite young my parents got divorced and I grew up largely with my mother and her side of the family I remember going to my grandmother for Shabbat every Friday I always felt much closer to the Jewish part of the family than I did to the other part of the family I like the cultural side of being Jewish but I felt like something was missing I thought a little bit about the story of Pesach and I thought about the story of how the cloud of God's presence would move and I felt like maybe the presence of God had moved but I hadn't kept up with the movement of the cloud or we hadn't kept up and so when I went to shul I just felt like there was something missing in terms of a connection with God it didn't seem like his presence was there I was a very private person and I kept my thoughts about God and to a large extent about life to myself I wanted to believe in something because I thought it was true I had a lot of questions about the meaning of life and what I was doing and what role religion was ever going to play in my life I went through some tough times as a teenager trying to find my identity and a lot of pains and a lot of questions why is there suffering in the world or why am I going through these difficult times if God does love me just wondering if anyone really cared about me at a at a deep level I thought that if I just did the right things and worked hard and enjoyed life I would have a good life everything would be okay but the problem is I found I didn't really have an answer to the meaning of suffering in the world where to suffering come from what's the purpose of some of the struggles that I've gone through myself is there some kind of meaning behind suffering and struggles in the world my mother didn't really speak about Jesus there was this big area that wasn't up for discussion at some stage during my high school years I decided to read the Bible for myself and see what it was all about I encountered something that Jesus said where he said I have come that they may have life and that they may have it to the full that statement drew me so powerfully because I realized all around me people are looking for life everyone wants life and everyone wants to feel like there is some bigger purpose to why they're here I had to either take it seriously or I had to somehow put it to the side and just pretend like no one had ever given an answer because he was saying I am the answer and he has the answer to the questions that you are asking [Music] I saw evidence that does Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of Messiah who would suffer and die for the sins of the world the greatest example of God using suffering for ultimate good is the story of how Jesus suffered and died for the sins of his people the one person in human history who never deserved bad things to happen to him is the person who may be suffered the most he was put to death at the hands of men but God raised him up it's through the suffering of Messiah that he brings us into the presence of God and opens up a relationship with God if God used the greatest example of human injustice and of suffering to bring about the greatest miracle in the history of the world there is hope when I go through struggles in my own life and hope that no suffering is in vain it all has a purpose in God's plan I wrestled a lot and I struggled a lot I felt like there was a distance that started to develop between myself and my family and it started to come to a position where I realized I needed to make a choice and I started to realize that this promise of abundant life that Messiah makes is a promise that is worth much more than any human relationship or the approval of people God didn't feel distant anymore I felt like he was moving my life in a certain direction and I didn't know where it was all going but I felt like there was no other way or no other path for me to go I'm a professional investor and so I'm very aware that people want good investments that will give them a return over the long term and one of the things that Jesus said was don't lay up treasure for yourselves on earth because on earth there's moths that eat up and rust that destroys but lay up treasure in heaven everyone is aware that they only have a short time on this earth but people are so obsessed with making money and having a lot in this life but they seem to want to forget that they can't take any of that with them the promise of life that Jesus makes is a promise of eternal life that begins in the here and now the passion that his spirit gives makes this life in this world have meaning I need to sometimes remind myself of that but it really is this wonderful truth and treasure that I enjoy and that no one can take from me you

Channel: ONE FOR ISRAEL Ministry

Views: 46,506

Keywords: Jews, Jewish, i am second, Christian, moshiach, Hebrew, Christianity, Christ, Elohim, jew, saved, testimony, yehoshua, judaism, Yeshua, jewish, Bible, conversion, testimonies, Gospel, Jesus, Israeli, messiah, God, witness, yeshua, Israel, Judaism, Jerusalem

Id: uKP8UdYl484

Length: 7min 7sec (427 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 08 2016