​Suffering Self-induced Misery
Part Four of Four
The consequences of our sin and poor decisions will not only generate self-induced misery for oneself, but can bring on pain and suffering to all the people that have been, or will be, impacted by the negative choices we make.
Believers, and especially those who become advancing disciples, are likely to suffer more frequent and intense bouts of self-induced misery, than what the worldly-minded people around them will experience. 
There will be no lasting peace of mind for born-again believers out of fellowship with God. God loves them too much to allow that to happen.
Just being out of intimate fellowship with God will make an advancing disciple miserable enough, to motivate him or her to get their spiritual lives back on track. For back-sliding believers, it may take increasing levels of divine discipline. 
The longer one stays out of fellowship with God, the more comfortable he or she will become in his or her sin, and the less interested he or she will be in doing anything about it.  
Through human rationalization, people can become comfortable with sin, especially when the type of sin offers a period of escape from his or her self-induced misery, fulfils a desire of the fallen nature within us, and or brings temporary or seasonal pleasure.
Many years ago while studying for my ordination, I listened to a presentation by Pastor Bob McLaughlin who likened sinners that become comfortable with the seasonal pleasures of sin, with a frog in the research lab.
Hold a frog over a boiling pot of water and it will squirm and fight to avoid being scalded when it senses the heat and impending danger.  But put the same frog in a pot of water with a comfortable temperature, then very slowly increase the heat, and it will be lulled to sleep and offer little resistance, even though it is headed for certain  death.
It should come to us as no surprise that there is much injustice here in the devil’s world (1), but it is reassuring to know that there will be perfect justice in Heaven, and in the life to come in the New Heaven and Earth.  
Rather or not we place ourselves in a position to be blessed or disciplined here on Earth is a choice we make.  Rather or  not we place ourselves in a position to be rewarded and privileged in Eternity is another choice we make.
To the surprise of many, 1Cor. 15: 19 concedes that if what many believers go through here on Earth is all that Christianity has to offer, then Christians should be pitied more than anyone else.  
But there is more, much more, making it all worthwhile, to invest our time, talents, and treasure, in the new world to come.
According to 1Cor. 2: 9, it is beyond human comprehension to grasp all the great things that God has in store in Eternity, especially for those who will receive the reward and privileges for having been advancing disciples during their time, here on Earth.
“Good guys” will often “finish last”, here on Earth, but not so in the life to come.
But until then, there will be self-induced misery here on  Earth, for the negative choices we make.
Spiritual ignorance and willful rejection of the Word of God are choices we make.  Such choices not only will negatively impact the quality of our life here on Earth, but  effects what our individual experience in Eternity is going to be like.
A negative choice is one in which we decide to do something that we have learned (or should have learned) that is forbidden in the Word of God.
A negative choice is also one in which we decide NOT to do something that we have learned (or should have learned) that the Word of God requires of us.
We choose to learn or not to learn what the Word of God has to say.  We then choose to apply, or not to apply, what the Word of God has to say, inevitably reaping either the blessings or consequences of these decisions, be it in time, or in Eternity.
We choose to primarily live for the here and now, or for what eternity has in store.  We choose to identify and execute the plan that God has in mind for us, or we choose an alternative plan, or simply pursue our own agenda.
At the end of the day (life), we have reaped or have set the stage to reap the crop that we have sown.
Self-induced misery is both inevitable and completely avoidable, based on the choices that we make.
Although we have little control over much of the trouble that other people bring to us, we have full control and accountability, over how we choose to respond to it, making us better or bitter individuals, during much of our time, here on Earth.
Show me a bitter person, and I’ll show you a person suffering from self-induced misery.
In closing, one might wonder why it seems that the one we see in the mirror gets caught and disciplined for what seems to be the slightest deviation from the straight and narrow way, while there are others that are seemingly getting away with gross immorality and being no worse off for it.
The short answer is that it is the devil’s world, and we should not be surprised, because to the extent that God allows, the devil rewards those who do thing his way. The advancing disciple considers where all of the prosperity that the devil’s world can provide will leave us, when we leave it all behind (2).
In the meantime, it is better to have little with happiness, than it is to have much with misery.
God blesses His children, but He also disciplines them for their  own good. 
God does not want us to be miserable, but He will allow it, if that is what it takes to turn us around.
Even the best that life here on Earth can bring is relatively short-lived.  Eternity future, with its all of its blessings for some, and all of its suffering for others, is forever.
It takes humility to acknowledge that much of the misery we experience is self-induced. 
(1) Luke 4: 6 (2) Mark 8:36
End of Part Four 
End of Series