Give Us This Day
This post is the first in a new blog of mine: Take This Cup: How God Transforms Suffering into Glory and Joy.
I will be drawing heavily on my book of the same title, which is the fruit of 30 years of meditation on what the Bible says about suffering, as well as on my own suffering.
The book is available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Take-This-Cup-Transforms-Suffering/dp/1725262037/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=39JXLU6HC1ABP&dchild=1&keywords=take+this+cup+erlandson&qid=1635210730&sprefix=take+this+cup+erlandson%2Caps%2C530&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyQTdSTjNKMUVJTUVLJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMjY0ODI3MjlHQzJGTk4yNE05TyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNjIwODQ3MTNFOFg3Q1NWS09MUyZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=
My hope is that what God has shown me will be of great comfort and joy to those who read.
Suffering is one of the few universals in life and something with which everyone who is reading this has struggled. I have written this book that you might believe that your suffering has a meaning and that God is good.
I have written this book that you might rejoice in your suffering because all Christian suffering unites us to Jesus Christ and, therefore, leads to glory and joy.
I make this audacious, and even offensive, claim because it is the good news of Jesus Christ proclaimed in a different way. It is the good news that God takes what men and devils mean for evil and transforms it into our glory and joy, through his Son.
Read this book if you want to know how and where God promises his people glory and joy through their suffering. Read it, and take the cup of suffering with your Lord. If you do, he promises you, he will unite himself to you through your suffering.
“This is a book not only about suffering but about the gospel of Jesus. We all need to understand the cup of which Erlandson writes, for we will all drink from it. But only if we understand it will we experience its joy. Hence the value of this book.”
–Gerald McDermott, Beeson Divinity School
“This is one of those rare, remarkable books that effectually remind us that drinking draughts of grace is only possible when its sweetness passes over lips that have also tasted the bitterness of adversity. Drink and drink deeply from this beautiful, comforting, and intensely practical cup.”
–George Grant, Parish Presbyterian Church, Franklin, Tennessee
“The challenge this book places before us could not be more daunting. We are told to drink the cup of suffering. Charles Erlandson urges us directly to lift it to our lips–trusting that it is the cup of Christ. Pastorally sensitive and theologically astute, Take This Cup is a biblically shaped meditation on the meaning of suffering and on how we participate in Christ’s redemptive work by drinking from his cup.”
–Hans Boersma, Nashotah House Theological Seminary
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