"...the Spirit-filled perspective of Jesus allows us to remain Jesus-centered in our thinking, Spirit-led in our practice, and humble in our hardships. This is made possible when we realize that because being Spirit-filled means being like Jesus, such things as poverty, sickness, and hardship are not incompatible with living a Spirit- filled life. Indeed, the most perfectly Spirit-filled person who has ever lived, Jesus Christ, worked a simple job, lived a simple life, and died a painful death as a flat-broke, homeless man by the power of the Holy Spirit and in so doing perfectly and fully glorified God the Father and tasted pure joy.-Mark Driscoll, Death By Love, p. 211
Sadly, the Eastern religions see God as so detached and distant that God is in no way our savior, example, or power for new life. According to Islam, God cannot suffer, and so their scholars teach that the Holy Spirit left Jesus before he suffered on the cross as a mere man. However, one of my favorite Bible teachers, John Stott, asked a most pointed question in his book The Cross of Christ (which I would commend for your reading): “In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?”
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