Have you experienced #pain and#suffering?  Most of us know about or have endured some miserable pain and the #heartache of prolonged suffering.  Today we take a pain pill to make life bearable, but even that does not always work.  God made our physical body with pain sensors to alert us of bodily distress.   When Jesus Christ ,  God’s only son,  was  bodily here on earth, He experienced physical pain just like we do.  As a carpenter occasionally misses a nail and the hammer hits a finger – ouch!  We all know that smarts… As Jesus was maturing here, he felt all his scrapes and bruises;  however, that was nothing compared to the weight of the cross. “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: …He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows:…He was wounded for our transgressions,… He was bruised for our iniquities:  the chastisement of our peace was upon Him:  with His stripes we are healed….He was oppressed … He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth:…He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter” Isaiah 53:4-7    Was there a purpose for all this suffering?  What does the Bible say:  1Peter 3:18″Christ has once suffered for sins of the just and the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.“ 4:1,2″As CHRIST SUFFERED FOR US IN THE FLESH, strengthen yourselves with the same mind:  for he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men but to the will of God.  19. wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.”  There is no substitute –  now is the time to give your achey body and soul over to the Living God so you can be alive forevermore with Him.