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WHY WE SUFFER
Looking at the world, what you see is rape, alcoholism, divorce, etc. and it is difficult to see the purpose behind all this suffering. Indeed, for the non-religious person, there seems to be little point in it all, and this is reflected in the philosophies that gave rise to our modern culture. In the absence of any kind of central unifying principle, the world has had to assume that the human being is in the centre of the universe, and self-actualization, whatever form it might take, is the main goal. When this fails, and all the mind-power in the world does not produce permanent "happiness" and fulfilment, humankind has to ask the question:
"What is the purpose of life?"
The world has no answer to this question. Assuming that meeting their perceived needs is the highest good, they are dumbfounded when they cannot do it, or at least, when that which they do to achieve this goal, fails. The fact is that, while they may not be able to pinpoint the purpose of life, they easily identify the nature of life:
"Life is a struggle"
But why? This is not such a stupid question as it may seem. If the nonbeliever cannot find an answer to this question, their struggle has no purpose, and there is no reason for them to endure the suffering, and they might as well commit suicide, as a great many of them indeed do.
The Christian life
So what about the Christian life? Why does the Christian have to suffer? After all, we have done what it takes to inherit "life, and life more abundantly". We have done what it says in Romans 10:9 "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.". So we should, according to the faith movement at least, have a life of plain sailing. We should be rich, healthy, and carefree. WHY AREN'T WE? Are we in sin, do we not have enough faith? Does the Lord not care? Are his promises false, or are we misinterpreting something?
This seems important enough to pursue. Not only do we need to know what we rightfully may expect, but we need to know why!
Apparently the process of salvation goes like this:
Rom 5:1 "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God."
That seems fair enough! There is "hope of the glory of God"! So let's carry on…
"Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, "
WAIT minute! Who said anything about suffering? This story is getting out of hand! Read on. Maybe it is a mistake!
"…because we know that suffering produces perseverance;…"
Nope, no mistake here!
"…perseverance, [produces] character; and character, hope."
What kind of hope can all that produce? The only kind of hope I want is that I won't have to suffer too much. This is not what it said in the contract:
Rom 10:9 "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord" and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved,
10 For it is with your heart that you believe, and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."
It doesn't even say, "confess your sin", it says "confess Jesus is Lord". BAD NEWS!!!! I didn't read the small print.
A small fact:
The word "Suffer/suffering/suffered" appears in the NIV version of the Bible 90 times in 83 verses!
But it does say:
Rom 8:28: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes."
So there must be something in all of this that is for our good, and
Suffering understood is suffering more easily borne!
Suffering Part 2
In order for us to begin to understand what the reasons for suffering are, there are 2 things we must clear up.
HIS SACRIFICE WAS NECESSARY: Romans 3:23 Says: "For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God." We have to believe that Jesus needed to die in order for us to be saved, and there is no other way for us TO be saved.
There is nothing we can do to save ourselves. So, we believed in him. Big step. Our salvation, in respect of the Spiritual, is complete. We will never become more saved spiritually than we are now. But there is more to us than the spiritual.
We still live physically in this world. We have emotions, a will, and an intellect, all of which are rampantly opposed to God's will for us. So the step of Salvation where we believed on Jesus, was big, but not the biggest. But it is only one part of God's ultimate plan. He wants that we should go one (BIG) step further:
We must continue to choose him. Faith is only faith when it cleaves to the eternal, not the temporal. It is sceptical of the physical. It chooses to demonstrate a choice to hold onto good (as demonstrated to us in the will of God) even when there is no immediate reward. It calls us to pursue FURTHER salvation.
HIS SACRIFICE WAS ENOUGH The next big step, and this is almost more difficult than the first, is to believe this. The reason we have to finally put to rest our notions of salvation, is that we have to finally rely on him to be the author and finisher of our faith. When we are faced with the habits which ensued from our brokenness, we have to believe the above, enough to be able to choose Jesus above our old, and very outdated ways of relating. In other words we HAVE TO START APPLYING HIS SALVATION TO OUR LIVES IN EVERY PRACTICAL WAY POSSIBLE.
Some Questions to ponder:
1. Do you believe Romans 3:23 is true? Do you believe that it was necessary for Jesus to die on the cross?
2. Are you saved? This is not such a stupid question as it seems. Do you believe that Jesus died for you, and the God raise him from the dead? Read Romans 10:9-10 and decide for yourself how you will answer this question.
3. Do you believe that Jesus' sacrifice was enough?
In other words, are you still intent on supplying your own answers when the going gets tough?
4. Do you demonstrate the salvation of Jesus in the choices you make when you are confronted with situations which bring up old feelings and reactions?
Reasons for suffering:
Rom 8: 16-17 says… "we are God's children……co-heirs with Christ...indeed we share in his suffering in order that we may also share in his Glory"
We are part of the same family. Members of the same family go through the same stuff. Jesus suffered, so we suffer with him. If he suffered to be proved worthy, we share in the same character and the way it is produced.
We are, even more so, part of his body…if the person suffers, so does the body. It cannot be escaped. A person goes hungry, even the ring finger loses weight. One for all and all for one!
His suffering led to his glory. If we are to share in his glory, we must share in his suffering.
We, being part of his body, already share in his glory, but for our own sakes, and for the sake of his increasing glory, it needs to be "revealed in us: (vs. 18)
"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."
We are being "mined" for glory. The suffering is revealing his glory in us (more about that later)
And being "Mine"-ed (made his) through the constant choice we make for him. In the face of suffering we make choices which confirm his ownership of us.
Questions to consider:
1. Did you know that Jesus is your big brother? Nice thought, hey?
2. What KIND of glory could possibly be revealed in you?
3. Think HOW his glory is revealed in you when you struggle.
3. Do you genuinely think his glory is WORTH IT?
4. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you some of the things he has done in
you through struggle/suffering!
SUFFERING TURN US TO GOD
That God might be glorified… (Rom 5:2) "through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
It shifts the focus away from us and where it belongs to God.
The proper focus for the one who is suffering, is not the one who is suffering, but the one who can do something about it.
In a strange, almost paradoxical way, the Lord hopes to direct us outwards through suffering. It is easy to be philanthropic and giving when we are in easy street, but it is character building, and self-sacrificing to be outward directed when we are in the midst of suffering.
Remember in the last teaching I said that character traits run in families. We are to build character that resembles Jesus' character. Suffering builds that. Jesus was perfected through suffering, and so are we. What it does require from us is that we do not wallow in our suffering, but that we turn towards the source of the hope that we have: God the Father, and accept that life is hard, but still glorify him.
Character is realistic…it is born of truth. And that includes the truth that God is great and that he must be acknowledged to be good and great no matter what the evidence. It is the biggest slap in the devil's face that we do not turn on God when we suffer. That is the whole story of Job all over again. So in the truth that we discover in the midst of suffering, namely that God is great no matter what we are going through, we begin to assume even more of the character of God. Of Jesus.
This kind of hope "does not disappoint us" (vs.5), because it is not based on evidence, but on the truth. (Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.) we learn, by building into our spiritual heritage, how to operate out of the "new Creation". The words of God become more real to us than the evidence of our flesh. I am not talking here about a "name it, claim it" kind of theology. ALL OF YOU will know no matter how much you rebuke suffering, it does not go away. I am talking here about beginning to breathe a spiritual air, beginning to breathe the "atmosphere of our home planet," where Christ already resides. From that place springs the "peace that surpasses all understanding", and the "joy of the Lord which is our strength"!
4. QUESTIONS TO PONDER.
a) Do I use suffering as a means to turn me to God?
b) How can I practically turn outwards when I suffer. How can I demonstrate the character of Christ, and his SERVANT nature, when I am suffering?
c) Do I REALLY BELIEVE that God is great and good, not matter what?
WE SUFFER SO THAT GOD'S GOODNESS AND COMPASSION MAY BE REVEALED.
In him, as he comforts us. He is called "the father of compassion & and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles…" (2 Cor 1:3)
The world tries to make out that God is cruel, and hold up our suffering as an example. In actual fact it is exactly the opposite. It is inflicted upon us by the Enemy, and instead of achieving his purpose, namely to make us curse God, it gives God the opportunity to reveal his true nature to us. He shows us how loving and compassionate he is.
In Heb 7: 22 ? it says: " Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. 23 Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24 but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. 26 Such a high priest meets our need--one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens."
We suffer, so that his nature may be revealed IN US 2 Cor 1:4-6 "…who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. It is a beautiful outworking of what we read in Rom 8:28… "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
So the circle of suffering and compassion increases and increases, until, Satan has destroyed himself. He has well and truly shot himself in the foot. The compassion of God, started for us in Jesus Christ, demonstrated through his death on the cross, is transferred and magnified every time it is demonstrated by one of his children who has suffered and received compassion and comfort, to another who is suffering and so on. Suffering creates the possibility of a most holy transaction.
Questions to Ponder
1) Is there a way that I can begin to see suffering in this more positive light? Does God, or has God, ever revealed his compassion to me through my suffering?
2) If not, ask him to.
3) If yes, make a note of these instances, and add them to your armoury.
4) Have I ever shown the compassion I was shown, to others?
It reinforces God's intention in us that we should put to death the "flesh". The choice to endure suffering denies the self which clamours for the easy way out. It denies the self that cleaves to old ways of doing things. It starves it out. Choice to endure suffering for God's sake strengthens the real self, the one we start building on…the "new creation", which is built up of eternal stuff and not temporary, perishable matter.
Resurrection can only happen after death. Christ had to die in order to be resurrected,
Christ had to die in order for the Holy Spirit to be released in him to produce resurrection. It is the same with us. "Unless a seed fall to the ground and die…"
And so suffering is a tool for our deliverance from the world. This is what we should seek, not deliverance from suffering.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER.
1) Am I ready to give up the "old self"?
2) Do I begin to see suffering in a positive light rather than as a punishment?
Suffering purges our perceptions, so we may see the truth of Christ, namely that our entire hope is in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
We no longer allow ourselves the luxury of self-pity. When we begin to identify with the crucified Christ, we are enabled to se ourselves for what we are: "little Christs" (That is what the Greek word "cristianos" means) whose sole purpose in life is to become more like him. So we identify with him on the cross, and assume the mantle of one who is has a greater purpose, above the demands of our own agendas, where we can begin to see our eternal goal…
We can offer hope to the world that there is purpose in their suffering, since we have the authentic view of our own suffering as the true purpose on earth, namely to emulate our master in his mission….to reveal the Father to the world.
To reflect to the world that the Father is ALWAYS extending a hand of compassion and mercy to those who are struggling under the yoke of the devourer, who are caught up for a season on a planet where they are aliens, breathing a foul, tormenting alien air.
To prove to the heavenlies by our reaction to suffering, that the Father is ULTIMATE GOOD, and that we choose to serve him, even though it becomes progressively more difficult. Our behaviour is an affirmation that HE is God.
Phill 3: 8 "What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."
Questions to ponder.
1) Have you learnt anything of value from this extended teaching?
2) What did you learn (Email me)
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