“Take up your cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24).

When we think about a lot of evangelism efforts, we see the sales pitches emphasize all the pluses of coming to Jesus—His love, forgiveness, freedom, joy, guidance, fellowship with God…(all true)—but the call to “come and die,” as Bonhoeffer put it, is left largely in the fine print that no one talks much about (if at all). It is no wonder some professing believers get a bit of buyer’s remorse when faced with suffering for their faith, or calls to deny themselves—“when did I sign up for this?” Spurgeon said that too many people look to the cross for their salvation, but fail to see that it is also meant to be their occupation. 

But Jesus is indeed calling those who wish to follow Him to come and die—die to self, and possibly literally lose their lives for His sake. Jesus doesn’t call any spiritual sissies—or at least, those who aren’t willing to grow beyond their feebleness and fears who will wash out when the fire and the scandal of the cross confronts them, for the cross has always been meant to be a bit scandalous. 

As much as the cross is an instrument of death, it is also the only way to true life. Jesus has said that only those who are willing to lose their life will find it. He promises that the yoke, the cross He offers, leads to peace. In fact, Spurgeon says that believers who have yet to find peace have not made that connection of taking up their cross as their life, not just their hope for Heaven. 

Fortunately, Jesus doesn’t call us to anything where He has not gone before us, nor does He send us alone into the face of suffering (remember, He said He’s yoked with us (Mt. 11:29-30)). No, He continually assures us of His love, presence, and the enabling power of His Spirit. He draws us deep into fellowship and love with Him to prepare us to face (and carry us through) whatever suffering, self-denial, or scandal the cross brings, so we will be able to say, “He is worth it, whatever the cost of taking up my cross to follow Him.” We not only take up our cross for Him, we fellowship more deeply with Him in the process. He didn’t suffer one bit more than was necessary. He suffered purposefully and sufficiently to take our punishment and glorify God.

Consider

• How are you moving toward the call to take up your cross, or are you running from it? Do you see the cross as merely salvation, or occupation?
• How do you practice saying no to things you want, see as your right, or enjoy for the sake of the gospel? What do you do to take up your cross?
• When Jesus calls you to come and die to something, do you balk, or do you think, “He is SO worth it!”? Think of examples in your life.
• How can/do you meet Jesus when you take up your cross?

Pray

Lord, show me where comfort and selfish desires have become my gods, and have kept me from the suffering of taking up my cross. Help me to love You so much that I see You as SO worth any losses or crosses You call me to bear.

“We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called… Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23-24).

The cross is many things to many people. For example, our opening verse says that it is a “stumbling block” to the Jews. The Greek word used here is skandalon from which we get our word scandal. The Jewish law said that anyone who hung on a tree was accursed, so the scandal of Jesus being hung on the tree led many to scornfully reject Him. Even today people often have scorn for the cross and for Christians. When we take up our cross, we are accepting His scorn and His shame from some, and considered foolish by others. 

Rankin Wilbourne points out that the cross was an instrument of torture—of suffering, humiliation, and death. It was not venerated, it was feared—at least until Jesus was killed on one; then Christians turned the whole concept on its head. Instead of fearing and fleeing the cross, they embraced it, along with all the suffering, humiliation and death that went with it. Why? Because they wanted to “become like Him in His death,” no matter the cost, because they found having Jesus and the fellowship of His suffering worth whatever it cost. 

We Westerners don’t concern ourselves about literally following Jesus on an actual cross, so what does it mean for us? It can still mean scandal, shame and scorn, as well as suffering (both imposed and chosen). Wilbourne says, “There is no Christianity without the cross. Thus, there is no Christianity without suffering.” That is just the reality of being “in Christ.” The cross is where we experience the fellowship of Christ’s suffering. It is not merely resigning ourselves to His suffering, but embracing it, seeing that the cross is where we meet God. It’s also where our self-life goes to die so we can begin to break our attachments to this temporary and sinful world and fully give ourselves to God. The cross is the pattern for our lives, as we take it up daily and nail all that is self-life and sin to it. A.W. Tozer says, “Our cross will be determined by whatever pain and suffering and trouble which will come to us because of our obedience to the will of God.” 

Consider

• What crosses haven’t you chosen, but you’ve taken up because you felt they were God’s will for you? Did you do so willingly, or was there a struggle?
• Have you embraced the cross, or merely resigned yourself to it? 
• How has the cross been your pattern for living? How is it affecting your self-life? How are you fellowshipping with God there? 

Pray

Lord, help me to embrace the cross in whatever form it comes to me, so that I take it up in loving obedience, as You did for me. May the life of the cross become my pattern for living each day. Help me to see all the suffering the cross brings as Your invitation to meet You in loving fellowship. 

“If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself…” (Mark 8:34b).

Jesus says that there is a prerequisite if we want to call ourselves a follower of His: we must deny ourselves. Those who fail to do this may be Christ-admirers, but cannot truly be Christ-followers. It is a bedrock necessity for all who would “come after” Him. Thomas Watson states that “self-denial is the foundation of godliness, and if this is not well laid, all the building will fall,” so let’s be sure we’re laying it well. 

When Jesus tells us to deny ourselves and take up our cross, He’s not really giving us two separate commands; these are two different expressions of the same idea. Both of them imply death to the former life where self is at the center. We’ve heard the old adage that nature abhors a vacuum, so when we deny ourselves we aren’t just taking self away, leaving a vacuum; we are replacing self and self-will at the center of our lives with Christ and His will for us. 

We do this by following His example. Watson reminds us how much self-denial Jesus exercised on our behalf: He left the glories and comforts of the Father’s bosom, put on flesh, denied the glory of His name, gave up His reputation, denied earthly riches and grandeur, gave up His life, and was obedient to death. If that is what Jesus did for us, is it strange that He would expect those He calls to follow Him to do likewise? 

It might be helpful to look at what self-denial is and isn’t. It isn’t salvation by works; our self-denial doesn’t give us merit or salvation. It isn’t to be motivated by personal gain, like being admired by others. It’s not only occasional, it’s daily. It isn’t easy or effortless; it’s agony to put to death our desires. 

It is separating ourselves from things that distract or distance us from God and pollute our spirits. It’s removing things that fuel our complacency. It’s dying to self-will, sin, and the values of the world. It’s a willingness to lay down our own lives for Him and others. It’s showing the same attitude as Jesus when suffering. It’s a reorienting of our lives so that Jesus is the center, not us. 

Consider

• Are you a Christ-admirer or a Christ-follower? How do you know?
• When you see all Jesus did for you, what do you value more than Him? 
• When you consider the list of what self-denial is, how well is your foundation laid? Which of these is an area where you struggle most? 
• How have you been confused by things that aren’t real self-denial? 
• What do you need to deny so that Jesus is the center and not you?

Pray

“Dear Father, give me such a vision of the cross, and such an understanding of Christ’s death on behalf of sinners, that I will be willing to die to all selfishness within me.” (L.G. Parkhurst)

“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it” (Mark 8:35b).

When Jesus called us to deny ourselves, He followed up with the consequences of not doing so. If we cling to saving our self-life, we will ultimately lose our lives; but by denying our self-life for His sake, we will find that we will truly live. As AW Tozer sees it, the problem is that “a whole new generation of Christian has come up believing that it is possible to ‘accept’ Christ without forsaking the world.” There is far too large a body of people within the church, especially in the West, who do not realize how vital it is that we heed Jesus’ stark warning. It is a reminder that the faith to which He calls us isn’t a mere acknowledgement of the work of the cross, but a willingness to fully submit our lives to it. 

Self-denial is about removing our self from the center of our desires and our will for our lives and centering our lives on Christ, His will, and desires for us. We can either serve God or serve self, we cannot do both. As He so bluntly said, “Why do you say, ’Lord, Lord,’ but don’t do what I say?” We will love to please God or love to please self. The only way we can do both of those is if we are like Jesus and our greatest pleasure is pleasing God. Jesus wanted this so much that He “gave up His own life rather than do His own will” (David Tyler). 

Andrew Murray stresses the importance of this choice: “There is no other choice for us; we must either deny self or deny Christ…It was self that made the devil. Self was the cause of the fall of man. Self must be utterly denied. Self must be ignored and its every claim rejected.” Self, as much as we cherish it, is truly the enemy of our souls. Every choice for serving self is a choice for embracing spiritual death. Jesus doesn’t call us to deny self because He’s mean, but because He knows that doing so is the source of great spiritual life, joy, peace, and freedom in His love. The more we grow in our ability to deny self, the more we grow into His image and in fellowship with Him. 

Consider

• How does ignoring the centrality of suffering through self-denial demean Jesus’ sacrifice and minimize its impact? 
• How has a lack of emphasis on self-denial robbed your life of power?
• Who is at the center of your life, self or Jesus? How are you intentionally growing in this area?
• In what ways have you been cherishing self? Have you seen its destructive effects on your spiritual life and relationships with others? 

Pray

Lord, so often there’s a war in my spirit between cherishing self and following You in denying self to serve God and others. But I’d rather have that war than appease a self that is an enemy within. Make me aware when self is reigning, and give me the will and love for You to dethrone self and center all life on You. 

“By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16).

The Scriptures are quite clear that God has declared that the motive for Jesus’ own acts of self-denial, all the way to the cross, was love—love for the Father and for us. There is no greater love than if someone would give their life for us. Therefore, it stands to reason that if His call is for us to follow Him in this denying of self, we should have a similar motivation—love for God and love for others. That is the very heart of what is behind the call to suffer by denying self. 

As we have stated in previous days, our mindset should be to compare the worth of what the self desires to the incomparable worth of Jesus and what He has done for us. When we choose our will over His we are showing that our value system is hideously messed up, and that we, in fact, despise Him. That may be a jarring statement, because we tend to think that our little preferences don’t amount to much, but in the economy of eternity we are trading what is eternal and glorious (the perfect, loving, wise will of God), for what is temporal, worthless, debasing, and will pass away. We are trading what is love and life for us for what is deadly to our souls. We are trading the loving Lordship of One who gave His very life to save us, for the mastery of what will, in the end, destroy us. If valuing those things above Him isn’t despising Him, I’m not sure how to better define it. 

With our choices of whether or not to deny ourselves, we are deciding if our allegiance is to the authority of Jesus or to self-rule—aka rebellion—the same rebellion of Lucifer and Eve, the rebellion that got us into the hopeless mess we found ourselves in—hopeless until He lovingly gave His life to redeem us out of the mess. He has every right to ask us to lose our lives for His sake, because He gave His life for us. Indeed, the phrase “for my sake” means “on account of me.” So, our motive for suffering by self-denial should be on account of Him—on account of His love demonstrated in the giving of His life for us. Is that not reason enough to give Him ours? 

Consider

• Why do you think it is so hard for you to deny yourself? 
• What does your choice of whether or not to deny self reveal about your values?
• How does thinking about eternal consequences help you reframe your values?
• How is self-denial a declaration of your love for God and others?
• How does focusing on the love aspect of self-denial (both Christ’s and yours) enhance your motivation to lay down your life?

Pray

Lord, it sobers me to think that when I choose myself over You that I am despising You. It breaks my heart to realize how rebellious I can be, but it also helps me to realize even more how merciful, loving and patient You have been. Help me to value You more than anything my self desires, and to return Your love.

“If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Mark 8:34b).

“To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps” (1 Peter 2:21).

It can feel a bit overwhelming when we are faced with the reality of that call, when we come to grips with the fact that following Jesus means that we have to deny our own wills when they conflict with His, and die to sinful, selfish choices that pull at us, and be willing to give our lives in little daily ways, as well as even the ultimate way. We can despair of having the will and ability to follow Jesus so radically, and are sobered by the fact that He says that those who refuse to do so aren’t worthy of Him (Mt. 10:38). And the truth is that we really can’t follow Him to that level—at least not on our own. 

The good news is that when Jesus saved us He put His Spirit in us to dwell with us, teach us, and transform us, giving us new desires. He brings us into loving union with the Godhead, and helps us to know and see more and more clearly the value of Jesus and to love Him the more we grow to know Him. In his book, Waiting on God, Andrew Murray repeatedly encourages us not to despair when feeling overwhelmed or like a failure in the pursuit of God, but to cast ourselves in dependence on His grace. We must do that daily, often moment by moment, if we want to follow Him and imitate His example of a life of loving self-denial, willing suffering, and affectionate obedience to the Father. 

The truth is, we will only follow and make our lives like someone we value. Joshua West says, “It’s hard to follow Christ wherever He leads us when we think more of the things He asks us to give up than we do of Him.” He goes on to say that God changes our hearts to value Jesus more than our former desires. We need to pray for God to work that change in us, help us to see, know, and love Him more, and to fan our desires to follow Jesus in every way, despite the cost, knowing that our fellowship with Him grows as we participate with Him in His suffering. 

Consider

• Do you sometimes despair of living up to the call to follow, denying self? What do you do in response to that feeling?
• How have you defined “following Jesus” prior to this point? 
• How much do you rely on your own strength to follow Jesus?
• What is God saying to your heart about following Him? 

Pray

Lord, I have not followed You to the degree that Your call would indicate. Thank You for Your Spirit’s patient enabling to know, love, and follow You more, as You reveal Yourself and Your inestimable value to me.

“May I never boast except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).

“Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing way along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15-17).

Having heard and responded to Jesus’ call to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Him, the New Testament writers fleshed out what that looks like in their lives and ours. Paul uses the language of dying to the world or terms like “put off” and “put on” to describe the change in mindset toward self (Eph. 4:22-25; Col. 3:9-14; Rom.13:14), and other Spirit-inspired writers help us to see in practical terms the implications of living a crucified, Christ-centered life as well. 

Essentially, it boils down to a change of mindset born out of the Spirit’s illumination of the status of the world from a heavenly perspective. When we were under the grip of world-think, we valued what the world values: wealth, status, self-determination, etc. But the Spirit opens our eyes to see how temporary, empty, corrupt, and meaningless what the world values and offers really is. 

Rankin Wilbourne suggests that one of the strongest earthly attachments is the desire for approval, “We want to be liked. Yet Jesus tells us we will be hated (Jn. 15:18-19).” Following Christ is synonymous with rejection. When we try to avoid rejection, keep our reputations, be well thought of, and save face, we have fallen into the trap of saving our lives instead of willingly losing them for Christ’s sake. We have valued worldly approval over the approval of God. 

We need to pray with Paul that our spiritual eyes will continue to be opened so we can know—and therefore find more value in—the hope to which we’ve been called, the power we have in the Spirit, and the unfathomable love of Christ for us (Eph. 1:1-19; 3:14-21). With that perspective “the things of earth will dim and lose their value,” and the Lord and His ways will be the desires of our hearts.

Consider

• Which and how much of the worldly values are still a draw in your life? How can you gain the heavenly perspective on them?
• If a faith that costs nothing is worth nothing, what of the world’s hold is the Lord impressing on you that you need to die to?
• How does your prayer life reflect your battle with your worldview?

Pray

Lord, take me to the cross of Jesus, that I may fellowship with Him in His death by desiring more and more to die to the world, to sin, to my desire for approval, or comfort, or security outside of You. Give me Your heavenly perspective.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2).

“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in various trials” (1 Peter 1:6).

We have looked a lot at the topic of self-denial, which brings about a lot of soul-suffering, as well at the potential for physical suffering. But all of us face other kinds of suffering, often imposed on us by our fallen world, in the form of circumstances, sickness, or the sins of our own or others against us. As Jesus plainly told us, “In this world you will have trouble…” The Bible never sugar-coats suffering, but treats it with glaring reality, yet also great compassion.

Spurgeon noted that sometimes our imposed suffering is indeed cross-bearing, when we humbly submit to providence. “If your lot is hard, look upon it as Christ’s cross, and bow your head to it.” Receiving suffering as from His good, wise, and loving hand, and submitting to it with an attitude that seeks to join our hearts with His in the suffering is indeed taking up our cross. It is not the suffering per se that is the cross, but our choice of the attitude as we endure it. 

As both James and Peter show, the suffering will be different to different people. These trials are various because different people need different experiences to draw them into fellowship with the Lord and refine them to conform to His image. We will often see patterns in our suffering; some seem to suffer relationally, some financially, others physically, still others in their work… The list is long because there are so many ways to suffer in this fallen world, but also because we are each so distinct. What is a real trial for one person might not as greatly affect another. God knows us intimately; He knows how we are wired, where we are weak or strong, what is likely to break us or what will draw us to Him. He knows what our impurities are and how hot to make the fire to purge them.

Diverse difficulties also result in a variety of glory and honor—both for Him and for us—when Jesus is revealed. To make that spectrum of glory and honor the most splendid, He makes use of a wide variety of trials in our lives.

Consider

• When you suffer, do you lovingly and trustingly submit, do you feel like God is unfair, or do you assume He’s angry at you?
• How can you use suffering as a place to meet with God and know His love?
• Does your suffering run in patterns? Do you sense that there’s a particular part of your life He wants to touch or that draws you to Him?

Pray

Lord, You never look down on me in my suffering, but reach out in Your compassion. Help me to quickly turn to You in trust and love, and receive from You all the good You intend when I’m suffering, and deepen in Your love.

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, so that in due time He may exalt you. Cast all your cares on Him, because He cares for you. Be sober minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:6-8).

It is not only Peter who calls us to a proper perspective when we suffer or are in need. He heard Jesus Himself caution His hearers in a similar way (Mt. 6:25). When we are suffering it is very easy to let our attitudes go south. Peter warns us about the state of our minds, particularly when we suffer, and how the enemy of our souls will try to devour us. I would often tell people with whom I counseled to beware of what-if monsters that often plague us in times of crisis, because they’ll eat us alive. That advice is grounded in this passage. 

There are a number of perspective errors which we can get sucked into when we suffer, which is why we need to heed both Peter’s and Jesus’ call to keep our focus on God’s truth. Michael Emlet warns, “When faced with...immense suffering...there is a temptation to either numb ourselves in resignation or to aggressively try and fix what is wrong by wielding whatever control or power we can muster within ourselves.” As we addressed in last year’s devotional, resignation is not submission (neither is Stoicism). In resignation there’s an air of feeling like a resentful victim that does not fit the criterion of “humbling” ourselves under God’s mighty, loving hand, and which misses His heart. 

Neither is desperately grasping for control, a sign of humble submission to God’s work in our lives. We can’t know for what purpose God has sent our difficulties; but we can trust in His Word and His character that it’s done in love, meant for our good, and designed by His wisdom, so we need to yield to Him.

We err when we believe that all suffering is bad and needs to be over quickly. Suffering definitely isn’t pleasant, but God says it is meant for our good; it needs to last until His good work is done in us. We err when we sullenly or fearfully isolate from God instead of seeking Him in our pain. Suffering is meant to draw us into the fellowship of sharing in His suffering and to hear His voice. As C. S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures but He shouts to us in our pain.” Let us be humble and persevering enough to listen.

Consider

• What errors do you find yourself slipping into when you suffer? Do you get anxious, angry, controlling, distant, doubtful, complaining…? Others?
• How does Scripture help you check your attitudes at these times?

Pray

Lord, guard me from perspective errors when I suffer. Keep me from being resentful or stoic, or from trying to control what is in Your wise and loving hands. Help me to join with Jesus in humble, loving, trusting submission.

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28-29).

This passage is so comforting for us because it reminds us that nothing with God is purposeless (“God causes everything to work together”). Nancy Guthrie suggests that these verses mean that “if we are in Christ, we can be sure that our suffering is not random or meaningless. It is purposeful. And oh, how we want the suffering in our lives to have meaning and purpose.” 

Paul also tells us that far from being an interruption in the productive life we want to get back to, “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:18). Achieving! Our troubles are not only purposeful they are productive! And what they produce will outlive and outweigh the pain—all the way to eternity! That promise is important to hold on to, because God may not ever tell us the purpose of our pain on this side of Heaven, but we know we can trust His Word and His character. 

Not only does suffering achieve glory in Heaven, it produces something for us in the here and now. Paul tells us that we can actually rejoice when we suffer, because “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out His love in our hearts through the Holy Spirit He has given us” (Rom. 5:3-5). Suffering has as one of its purposes the production of godly character in us. And not only that, it produces hope, of all things. So often we feel hopeless when we suffer, but if we focus on God’s truth, His promises, and His presence throughout the ordeal, He will purposefully build hope in us—our hope is found in Him.

To top it off, He pours His love into us through His Holy Spirit. I can personally testify that I have learned and experienced more of the love of God in times of suffering than I have in times of ease and rejoicing. God’s purpose in redemption is to bring us back into a love relationship with Him, and He works that purpose in everything He does, even in our suffering. He flows His compassion to us, and literally pours out His love into our hearts at such times! Praise Him!

Consider

• How does it help you to know that your suffering has purpose? How can holding on to purposefulness help you when you’re called to suffer?
• What character development have you seen from your suffering?
• When is it you have learned/experienced the most about God’s love? How has God displayed His love and drawn you to Him in your suffering?

Pray

Lord, help me to keep Your purposes and Your love in mind when You call on me to suffer. May I trust in Your promises and Your character and not feel hopeless. Rather, may I have a deeper experience of Your poured-out love.

“We sent Timothy...to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so none of you would be shaken by these trials. For you know that we are destined for this” (1 Thessalonians 3:2-3).

As we saw yesterday, suffering has purpose. Today we further that theme to help us see why that is necessary. Spurgeon says, “Jesus does not suffer so as to exclude your suffering. He bears a cross, not that you may escape it, but that you may endure it. Christ does exempt you from sin, but not from sorrow; He does take the curse of the cross, but He does not take the cross of the curse away from you. Remember that and expect to suffer.” 

We noted that suffering was intended to develop some character qualities which require the fertile soil of affliction. Spurgeon suggests that patience is another character trait where suffering is an essential element, saying that those who don’t endure trial have no opportunity to develop patience: “Patience is a pearl that is only found in the deep seas of affliction...I hardly think that we learn anything thoroughly without the rod of affliction.” 

Personal suffering is also necessary to develop the empathy and authenticity to correctly carry out the ministry of reconciliation Paul speaks of in 2 Corinthians 1. First, suffering is vital in refining us and in weeding out our attitudes of entitlement and pride. Next, it casts us more fully onto the Lord in dependence on Him. Without suffering we often think we can handle things on our own. Suffering blows the façade away on that illusion. The strength and comfort God gives us as He ministers to us enables us to, in turn, minister to others in ways we would not have been able to if we had not suffered. James O. Fraser says, “We must bleed, if we would be ministers of the saving blood.” 

Another reason that suffering is necessary is that we serve a suffering Lord. It takes our own suffering to fully enter in to communion with Him. As the fire of the trial heats up and burns away our impurities, that resulting holiness enables us to draw closer to Him. As we see Him minister to us in our pain, our trust deepens, again resulting in a growing relationship and deepening faith. We begin to understand that instead of fleeing suffering, we should embrace it as a vital element in gaining the prize of intimate union with the Lord.

Consider

• How has suffering developed your patience? What other character traits have been enhanced by suffering that wouldn’t have come otherwise?
• How has suffering helped you trust God more?
• How has suffering enabled you to minister to others?

Pray

Lord, help me to embrace suffering as necessary. Create a pearl of character, ministry, and intimacy out of something I’d rather flee. Help me to trust You fully.

“I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death” (Philippians 3:10).

“He chose them to become like His Son, so that His Son would be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29b).

In Genesis we are told that, of all the creatures co God made man in His own image, creating us with a certain capacity to relate to Him in a way that no other being could. When sin entered the picture, that image was marred; still, God persevered in relationship with us, even though sin distanced us. He promised a day when He would fully restore what had been so badly distorted, and this was accomplished at the cross when Jesus broke the curse. It continues in those people He has saved, as—through the work of the Holy Spirit and the Word and works of God—we are being transformed into His image (2 Cor. 3:18). 

Suffering is one of the works of God in our lives which He uses as part of that transformation process (for sanctification is a process, not instantaneous at salvation). We can become more like Christ in our suffering, both the suffering that is imposed upon us through what God allows and ordains, and the kind we choose through self-denial. While we imitate Christ in our suffering, there are both differences and similarities between our suffering and His.

Christ’s suffering is different because His is redemptive and ours is not. We do not earn any merit through our suffering. Jesus paid it all through His agony and death on the cross. Our suffering is not about God’s wrath; as Spurgeon says, “There is not one drop of wrath in all your sea of sorrow. Jesus took the wrath; Jesus carried away the sin; and now all that you endure is but for His sake, that you may be conformed to His image.” 

When it comes to how our suffering is like Christ’s, I like how John Piper puts it: “The same suffering that pardons our sins provides our pattern of love...Like Him in suffering to do good to others. Like Him in not returning evil for evil. Like Him in lowliness and meekness. Like Him in patient endurance. Like Him in servanthood. Jesus suffered for us uniquely, that we might suffer with Him in the cause of love.” Suffering enables us to know Him and be made into His image probably more than any of our other experiences in our sanctification process.

Consider

• How does the fact that our suffering isn’t redemptive/wrath based help you fight the feeling that your suffering is because God is angry with you?
• What signs of Christ’s image have developed in you through suffering?

Pray

Lord, while I don’t want to invite suffering, I do so want to be made like Jesus, so I will receive from Your hand whatever takes me in that direction. Unite me with Yourself through whatever You bring into my life and help me be like You.

“And he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering” (Leviticus 4:29).

When Old Testament worshippers brought their sacrifices, they were personally involved in the sacrifice. First, they were to select the best from their flock (they were sacrificing in a literal sense). In the case of the Passover lamb, they then took it into the house to live with them before sacrificing it. They had to walk all the way to Jerusalem with the animal (buying them at the Temple came later). Then at the time of sacrifice they were to lay their hand on the head of the animal to signify the transferal of their sin onto the innocent victim that would bear the penalty for their sin. In essence, they were identifying with this substitute, saying, “This sinless one is taking my punishment.”

Fast forward to our time. The Innocent Victim of our sin suffered and died for us 2000 years ago. We’ve never seen Him; how do we personally identify with Him? Of course, the Holy Spirit plays a major role in this. As we’ve seen, He pours the love of God into our hearts; He brings the Scripture to life in our minds; He speaks to us through our life experiences, and points us to Jesus, our Passover Lamb. We’d never understand or experience God without the power and influence of the Holy Spirit.

When we become a follower of Jesus, one of the things the Holy Spirit uses to make the Lord real to us is when we participate in His suffering. Suffering helps us to identify with Him. We come to understand Him better, rely on His strength, get to know His sustaining love, get to “touch” Him in a way that is more tangible than anything our minds can conceive of when we just read or hear about Him. Paul said he wanted to “become like Him in His death.” That was not only His physical death, but the death to self that comes through self-denial. Jesus practiced this in countless ways, and by following Him in this, we are identifying with Him in intentional and sacrificial ways. 

We learn what Hebrews 2:17 means when it says that He was made like us in all things. He was willing to identify with us in our suffering so that we can, in turn, identify with Him in His. We learn that He is a God who really knows and really cares, and that makes us want to place our identity more and more with Him.

Consider

• When making the choice of self-denial, how would intentionally identifying with Jesus make that decision worshipful? Would it feel as much like loss?
• How does actively identifying with Jesus in our suffering change our perspective of our pain, and deepen our love for Him?

Pray

Lord, help me, in a spiritual sense, to place my hand on You and identify with You as the Innocent One who took my punishment. And help me to see that identifying with You in my suffering and self-denial means all gain and no loss.

“Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? ...No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness for those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:7-11).

If we read the entire passage referenced above, we get a great insight into God’s work in our lives, and why it’s sometimes painful or unpleasant. Parents understand this teaching well, although sometimes it is harder to appreciate from a child’s perspective. That we need discipline to prosper is a lesson we all need to learn and relearn. 

We should state emphatically that discipline is not meant to be punishment. We sometimes use these terms interchangeably, and that’s not accurate. Yes, sometimes discipline will address an issue of offense, but the intent is to correct the issue, not to punish it. And discipline often isn’t fun; for instance, training one’s kids to do chores can feel like punishment to them, but the skills they learn are meant to serve them all their lives, even if they don’t see that now. 

The goal of discipline is to perfect us (the word should be understood to mean complete). Just as Jesus was “made perfect” (completed) through suffering (Heb. 2:10), God uses suffering as discipline to complete us, as part of the process of fully transforming us into the image of His Son. 

Although discipline is often far from pleasant, a full reading of this passage will show that it is meant as a sign of God’s love. In fact, if we aren’t undergoing discipline on a regular basis, we need to be concerned whether we’re His child. We are meant to respond to discipline and its suffering with this idea in mind—God is doing this because He loves me. In fact, we will only reap that harvest of righteousness if we allow it to train us and don’t resist or ignore God’s work.

When God brings us through a discipline of suffering, once again we need to have the same attitude as Jesus (Phil. 2), who submitted to it, fully assured of the Father’s love despite the pain, entrusting Himself to the Father’s hands even at the point of death. When we emulate Him, we fellowship with Him in His suffering, and make massive steps toward completion.

Consider

• What is your mindset when suffering under God’s discipline? Anger? Bitterness? Confusion? Resistance? Submission? Gratitude for His love?
• How can you grow in your appreciation for what God is doing through your suffering? How can you deepen in love, and fellowship with Him there?

Pray

Lord, help me not to focus so much on the unpleasantness of Your discipline, but dwell more in the love You show me when You take me through discipline and its suffering. Use it to strengthen, complete, and make me like Your Son.

“But whatever was gain to me I count as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him” (Philippians 3:7-9a).

Paul was a spiritual accountant. In today’s passage and other places, he uses accounting terms to describe how he takes life experiences and puts them either in the profits (gains) or losses columns. His perspective is counterintuitive to the way the world looks at things and what it most values. Paul put things like his prestigious lineage, education, wealth and social status in the loss column and his suffering for Christ in the gains column.

Paul was not alone. James tells us to put our trials in the gains column by counting them as joy, citing the wonderful byproducts that trials bring. Jesus too kept His perspective on suffering clear by firmly keeping in mind that the joy set before Him was greater than the suffering of the cross. We will look more at this on another day, but suffice it to say that looking at both the gains and losses from an eternal value system will sharpen our perspective to face our trials.

Earlier in this series we talked about valuing Jesus more than what we are called to suffer or give up in self-denial. That is the essence of keeping our perspective on target. Say we’re faced with losing status because we insist on standing for Jesus. We have to determine if we value Him more than the admiration of those around us or the damage to our reputation. Do we put public approval in our gains column or Jesus’ column? Or say the temptation is to please ourselves in something rather than to please God or show sacrificial love to others. How does our value system guide us as to which column these choices should go? Our value system is everything when it comes to our perspective. 

Paul, James, and others in the Scriptures, maintained a godly perspective by keeping a single focus on the Lord because they valued Him the most. They joined their hearts and their goals with His, and that is what we need to do if we want our trials to be gains and our hearts to be united with His.

Consider

• How are your spiritual accounting skills? How difficult is it for you to keep your trials in the gains column? Why do you think that is?
• Which of your worldly gains is it harder for you to put in the loss column? 
• What do you need to do to develop and maintain a single focus on Him?
• How is knowing Christ the surpassing excellence of your life? 

Pray

Lord, show me where my perspective is off, and where I’m over-valuing what You consider worthless. Give me Your perspective on my suffering. Help me to join Your heart and Your goals. O Lord, help me to value You above all else! 

“So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good” (1 Peter 4:19).

Some would have us believe that it is never God’s will that we suffer. They argue that since Jesus bore the curse for us, if we have enough faith, He will remove every trial; after all, “by His stripes we are healed.” But to believe that, we have to misread or ignore a lot of Scripture. Jerry Bridges suggests, “When we encounter deep heartache or adversity, we may want to deny that God had anything to do with it. This is a common response today and seems to protect God’s character, but it does so at the cost of His sovereignty.” 

I would suggest it only seems to protect His character, because if we better understood the ways and mind of God we would see that His willingness to allow us to suffer is loving and glorious. If He was willing for His Son to suffer because of all the good it produced, wouldn’t it stand to reason that there could be excellent purposes behind His allowing or ordaining suffering for us, too?

Jesus knew His Father and fully entrusted Himself to Him (Lk. 23:46). In fact, the word Jesus used for committing His spirit to the keeping of His Father is the one used by Peter when he urged us to entrust ourselves to our faithful Creator. We can do that when we grow to know the Lord and His character as Jesus knows His Father. Even knowing it was the Father’s will that He go through all that, He not only lovingly submitted, He entrusted Himself to the Father’s promises to raise and exalt Him. This is because He fully believed in the faithfulness of the Father and His everlasting love for Him.

We are in the same boat. When it is God’s will for us to suffer, we can entrust ourselves to His faithfulness, as well as the other aspects of His character, knowing that God’s will is inseparable from His wisdom, mercy, compassion, goodness, and love. At the least, we can do that to the level that we know Him, believe these things about Him and trust His Word. Just as Jesus knew and loved the Father, knowledge of and relationship with the Lord is essential for us if we wish to trust Him when we suffer according to His will. The time to nurture that is today, before the trial starts (or even if we’re in the midst of suffering now).

Consider

• What are you doing to know the Lord better and nurture Your relationship?
• How has He demonstrated His faithfulness to you in life? In your suffering?
• What goes through your mind/heart when you think about God being willing that you suffer? How difficult is it for you to submit to that?

Pray

Lord, when You are willing for me to suffer, help me to entrust myself to You. Help me to remember You are faithful to Your character and promises, and above all that You love me. Help me to deepen in Your love when I suffer.

“See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10).

While there is some overlap between discipline and refinement, there are also distinctions. As we saw, discipline is about growth, strengthening and maturity; refinement, however, is focused on testing for and removing sin.

The metaphor of refinement is amply represented in both Testaments. It is obvious that it has always been the Lord’s intention to have a purified, holy people, and He has gone to great lengths to see that this happens. Not only has He turned up the heat on His people to purge out our sin, He sent His own Son to the cross to pay the price for sin and cleanse us. He wants us holy. 

We have often heard that we were saved at the cross, we are being saved through sanctification, and we will be saved when we are taken to glory. At the cross we were made holy in His sight, but we are still prone to sin. Much of the New Testament points us to the continued call to put away sin and seek the holy, pure life for which Jesus died to save us; but we still have a tendency to not be as horrified by our sin as we should be. We still ignore it or even enjoy it too much to give it up, which shouldn’t be true of God’s blood-bought people. 

Often God needs to turn up His refining fire in our lives and allow suffering to expose sin and purify us from our sinful ways, selfish tendencies, and wrong attitudes. As 1 Peter 4:1 tells us, “He who has suffered in the body is done with sin.” That is the goal of God’s refining process. God does this painful operation in love for us, not wrath. He longs to be with us, but He cannot look on sin. The closer we are to sin, the farther we are from Him. He refines us because He also knows we will only be truly happy when we’re holy (as Pastor Jay Childs loves to say), and He longs to give us the best. 

Jesus is purifying His bride so He can present us to Himself as spotless (Eph. 5:27); “He gave Himself for us to...purify for Himself a people for His own possession zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14). We need to understand, particularly when we are suffering in the crucible, that the Lord means it to draw us nearer, show us His love, and make us holy, happy, and prepared for Heaven.

Consider

• How intent are you on living a holy, pure life? If it’s His priority, but isn’t your priority, what does that say about your love for Him? Your salvation? 
• When you’re in the crucible, how can you keep your heart focused on the love He intends instead of the pain? How does it prepare you as His bride?

Pray

Lord, I hate the process of refinement, but I SO need it. Help me to endure it by focusing on Your loving intent. Let what is impure come to the surface and be burned away. Purify me so I can draw ever nearer to Your holy, loving heart.

“I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord...I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death” (Philippians 3:8, 10).

How much do we want to know Christ? Does it measure up to the passion for that knowledge that Paul expresses in today’s passage? Paul wasn’t only desiring to know the blessing side or the miracles of Christ, He was asking to know Him even in His suffering and His death. Paul wanted to know Christ—intimate, experiential knowledge—more than anything else in the world. 

Once again, we see value language used here. Paul puts everything else in life in the loss column and put knowing Christ in the highest gains column, calling it of “surpassing worth.” What did Paul know that we fail to realize when we flee from or decry suffering? Paul had grasped what Job did when, after suffering intensely, he said, “My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You” (Job 42:5). Even though Job had been a righteous worshipper, it was only through the crucible of suffering that Job really came to know God. 

Why is it that God would use such a catalyst to enable us to really come to know Him? Rankin Wilbourne suggests that, “This idea of sharing in suffering—becoming participants or partakers in it—is essential to the Bible’s view of suffering, that in fact, suffering is intrinsic to knowing the God who suffered. The cross not only shows God’s solidarity with us in our suffering; the cross also guarantees that we can only come to know the true God...through sharing in Christ’s sufferings...Suffering moves us closer to the heart of God because suffering exists in the heart of God (Rev. 5:6).” It is in suffering that we see the Lord in His faithfulness and compassion; we see Jesus as that sympathetic High Priest who knows fully what suffering is. 

It is said that shepherds used to break the leg of a wander-prone lamb, then carry it next to his heart until it healed, feeding it by hand, until the lamb was so attached to the shepherd that it never wandered again. May that be our experience in suffering—may it draw us and keep us near the loving bosom of God

Consider

• Has past suffering drawn you closer or moved you further from God? Why?
• While it’s dangerous hubris to invite suffering, how can you use what comes into your life to draw you near to the Lord? 
• How has suffering helped you know the Lord more and see His heart?

Pray

Lord, help me to not let the pain of suffering turn my heart away from Yours. Rather, may it draw me nearer to fellowship with You in Your sufferings, giving me a better understanding of what You did for me in Your great love.

“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus…” (Philippians 2:5).

“Then I said, ‘Here I am...I have come to do Your will, O God’” (Hebrews 10:7).

“Yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42b).

While this next set in our series could be classified as Purpose (because we are to be made into His image), we are shifting a bit to explore how our suffering draws us to the Lord by making us like Jesus. We will look at these traits in Him as He faced suffering in order to help us better endure our trials and use them to join our hearts with His. 

Our first verse reminds us that we are called to emulate Jesus. We are to look to Him to know how to live, how to love, and how to please and draw near to the Father. And we see that paramount in Jesus’ attitude was willingness. First, He was willing to yield His will to the Father in everything. Zack Tyler reinforces this when he writes, “Jesus came...not to do His own will, not to speak His own words, not to seek His own glory, not to teach His own doctrines. Jesus repeatedly emphasized His entire submission to the Father.”

If we are to have the same attitude, how far have we come in our own willingness to yield in everything, especially when it involves suffering (and yielding quite often is suffering for us)? Rankin Wilbourne says, “We must adopt a continuing posture of complete surrender to God’s will in every circumstance. The cross teaches us a new way of life...one of dying to our comfort and control.” 

That willingness to die is a second factor in our endeavor to follow Jesus in willingness. This doesn’t just involve being willing to physically die, but the thousands of daily deaths we must choose to embrace as we strive to die to self. This must be our willing choice, just as it was with Jesus. He gave His life voluntarily, and we are to do that as well. Just as giving up His life was Jesus’ way of showing His love for His Father and for us, our willingness to give up our lives, even our self-life, is our way of demonstrating that our love for the Lord and for others is genuine. As we follow Him in this willing love-offering, we find a union with Him unlike any other.

Consider

• How far have you come in yielding your will to the Lord—all of it?
• How would reminding yourself that Christ refused to please Himself help you in your willingness to please the Lord in everything? (Rom. 15:3)
• Where is it toughest for you to be willing to die to self? How can you use that suffering to draw you nearer to the Lord?

Pray

Lord, help me to grow in Christ-like willingness, yielding to You in all things. Though it is suffering to die to my self-will, may meeting You there remove the sting of death, mold me more into Your likeness, and show me Your love.

“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (1 John 15:12-13).

“By this we know what love is: that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16).

We ended yesterday by talking about the willingness to die as an aspect of love, and today we will take a deeper dive into Christ-like love and how it suffers. This is vital, because as Rankin Wilbourne says, “if we haven’t learned how to love on God’s terms, then we have missed the point of our one life, no matter what else we’ve accomplished. If love is the greatest commandment, then that means the greatest failure in life is the failure to love” (see 1 Cor. 13).

Jesus’ primary and foundational love was for His Father, and we must begin there as well, for, like Him, it is out of our love for God that our love for others overflows. We need to keep in mind that we cannot love God or others in our own strength: “We love because He first loved us“ (1 Jn. 4:19); “It is His love that compels us in all we do for Him and others” (2 Cor. 5:17). 

His love for the Father, and His desire to please Him, was so great that it overcame any impulse to act in His own preference, and that is to become the driver of our motivation to die to the self-life, despite any suffering that causes. The Spirit enables us to grow in the knowledge of God’s love (Eph. 3:16-18), and that intimate knowledge naturally transforms our ability to set aside self and to sacrificially love God and others. 

In his writings, the Apostle John shows us that this love “is a significant motivation for self-denial,” and one we often overlook as we attempt to deny ourselves out of sheer determination (Stuart Rochester). But Wilbourne says that we miss the boat, “if you don’t enjoy God” because “if the thoughts of seeing Him and becoming like Him are not the overriding passion in your life...then the call to [suffering/self-denial] will only sound like a religious-sounding, pietistic killjoy.” When God’s love is the motivator, then self-sacrificial love makes all the sense in the world.

Consider

• Evaluate your love according to the Wilbourne quote in the first paragraph. Have you missed the point of your one life?
• How does your love for God compare to Wilbourne’s description in the last paragraph? 
• Have you diligently prayed the Ephesians 3 passage regarding the ability to know God’s love in your life? How would that affect your motivations?

Pray

Lord, I’m a bit overwhelmed by all the opportunities I’ve missed to love You and others by denying my selfish ways. Help me to know Your love for me, and make returning it to You (then others) the “overriding passion” of my life. 

“Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart and you shall find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29). 

“And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).

One sure road to suffering is the road marked “Humility.” Nothing kills the self-life like the determination to walk humbly with the Lord and in the sight of others. And, for most of us, it’s not a death that goes down without a lot of pain. It is essential that we work to kill our pride, because it is at the root of all sin, beginning with that of Lucifer and extending to the Garden and beyond. Pride is when we make a god of our self, saying that we can determine our choices, we are sovereign in our lives. That’s a terrifying way to live, for it makes us most unlike Jesus, and God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (James 4:6).

Jesus tells us to look to Him as our example of what humility looks like. He humbly came to earth and took the lowliest of places. He humbly bore shame (our shame) on the cross, bore ridicules and accusations (undeserved and false), and endured betrayal (even serving the one He knew would do it). In fact, He demonstrated humility by washing the feet of all of His disciples, knowing that none of them would do it for one another, and all would abandon Him. 

This act was more humbling than we may understand, because in their culture it was degrading for a Rabbi to perform such a task. The disciples reacted pridefully, in part because it degraded them to be following a Rabbi who’d act that way, and partly because it shamed them that He was doing what none of them had been humble enough to do for one another. Then He told these disciples (who had just been arguing about who would be top dog in the kingdom) that they should follow His example and serve each other in such ways. 

Pride gets in the way of dying to self because, “a proud man admires himself, therefore he cannot deny himself.” However, “a humble man is like melting wax, God may set what stamp and impression He will upon him. The humble man is a self-denier” (Thomas Watson). It is only by looking to Jesus that we will be willing to suffer the pains of killing our pride and dying to our self-life.

Consider

• Where is pride most glaring in your life? Especially if you haven’t seen it, ask Him to reveal it to you. Where is it hardest to die to yourself?
• What do you see in Jesus’ humility that most draws you to imitate Him?
• It takes a lot of energy to defend our pride and insist on our rights; where would killing pride and dying to self help you find more rest for your soul?

Pray

Lord, make my pride as odious to me as it is to You. Help me to take Your yoke upon me and learn of You, for it’s only then I’ll find rest for my soul. 

“Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).

“He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8b).

A lot of times we can convey the idea, “If you’ll only obey, everything will go right.” And while there is a good deal of truth in that as a principle, Jesus’ life shows us that we can obey perfectly and yet it might still cost us plenty in pain and suffering. 

Just like with Jesus, “one either honors and obeys God at the risk of dishonoring and provoking the world, or one honors and conforms to society at the risk of dishonoring and provoking [disobeying] God” (David DeSilva). Jesus never strayed from the path of obedience, yet it took Him all the way to the cross. He didn’t have to “learn obedience” in the sense that He was ever disobedient (or we wouldn’t be saved); He learned the cost of obedience. And by doing so, He comes alongside us when we are faced with suffering the cost of obeying God in the face of what earthly authorities, or family and friends, or our own insistent self-life would say to the contrary. 

John Owen has a bit of a different take on the phrase “learned obedience.” In his perspective, it was about experiencing firsthand what it was to submit to “great, hard, terrible things, accompanied by patience and quiet endurance and faith for deliverance from them.” The fact that Jesus obeyed and submitted to such enormous suffering gives us two great gifts. First, it demonstrates what obedience is meant to be. It’s not just doing what God wants, but the attitude with which we do it—not the servile obedience of a terrified slave, but the trusting, God-absorbed, hope-filled, patient endurance of a child endeavoring to fully please the Father. 

The second gift is that, because Jesus obeyed to the fullest in the face of suffering the worst beyond imagining, He can come alongside us when we are confronted with suffering beyond what we think we can endure, to enable us to obey with the same submissive, loving attitude He had. He meets us there with His love and strength to endure and obey, no matter the cost. 

Consider

• When have you been challenged to obey in the face of opposition?
• What has been the hardest obedience God has ever called you to?
• When have you suffered the most in obedience? What did it cost you?
• How did God meet you when you were faced with painful obedience?

Pray

CONSIDERCONSIDER

Lord, give me Your courage to obey when the costs are high and the pain feels unbearable. Help me to do so with my eyes aspiringly fixed on Your lovingly submissive, quietly enduring patience, and hope for eventual deliverance.

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12:2-3).

Endurance means “the ability to bear up in the face of difficulty.” Biblical endurance differs from a grim stoicism by its steadfast hope in God’s faithful goodness undergirding our entire experience, and the ultimate outcome. Jesus had to endure much throughout His earthly life. What we read in a few moments on a few pages stretched out for years, and then excruciating hours that Good Friday. At any moment He could have said, “Enough!” but He endured to the end, until our debt was paid in full, our redemption accomplished. 

This is why Hebrews calls us to fix our eyes on Jesus: He is our Example, our Companion and our Hope of deliverance in suffering. First, we certainly have seen why He would be our example. He stood steadfast through whatever was thrown at Him, each and every time. As we look at His example of endurance we see His character revealed, and it draws us to realize that, if we follow Him, “suffering produces endurance and endurance produces [His] character” in us (Rom. 5:3b-4). 

However, as we suffer, we realize quickly that we cannot endure long on our own. We can’t come close to living up to His example—unless we have Him as our Companion. Because He has suffered not only as we have suffered but much more, we know that He has empathy for us. He never puts us down for our suffering; instead He comes alongside us. He is a sympathetic High Priest, and tells us to cast our cares on Him because He cares for us, and to look to Him for strength. His Spirit indwells us as our Comforter and Helper. He walks through the fire with us, just as He did with the trio in Babylon (Dan. 3).

He is also our Hope as we endure our suffering. We know He puts limits on all suffering, even when it seems interminable. We know that He will deliver us, either here on earth, or one day in Heaven. And He will use our suffering as our capacity to glorify Him in Heaven, for there we will proclaim our praises for all He has helped us to endure. 

Consider

• What in your life have you been called to endure? How did you do? What or who helped you to persevere, or what did you lack?
• What is most precious to you about Jesus as you endure trials? How has the Lord ministered to you in your sufferings? Been your example?

Pray

Lord, help me “fix” my eyes on You when I’m suffering, knowing that You are the great I AM, who is with me in the present tense, often helping me to endure moment by moment. May I sense I’m being held steadfast in Your loving arms.

“You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God” (Revelation 5:10a).

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession” (1 Peter 2:9-10).

In Hebrews we read much about Jesus’ qualifications as our sympathetic High Priest, His role in offering Himself as a sacrifice, reconciling us to God, and interceding for us. We are also told, as today’s Scriptures indicate, that we have been appointed as priests in God’s kingdom, and as such we are called on to give our lives for others (not for salvation, but in sacrificial love), intercede for them, and come alongside them with sympathetic, compassionate hearts. 

This involves some suffering on our part, just as it did for Jesus. A reading of the New Testament shows us that we aren’t called to reach out to others only when it’s convenient, or offer some benign charity from a distance. Following Jesus’ example, we are called to touch the untouchable, be up close and loving to the least of these, humble ourselves to wash the dirty feet of the brethren, and suffer alongside the hurting. Doing so can involve true hardship.

Paul writes of this priestly ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 1) when he speaks of God as the “Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles.” While that is so encouraging for us to hear and experience when we endure trials, Paul then turns to us in our priestly roles and says that we are to take the comfort God has given us in our suffering and minister that comfort and compassion to others, and, like priests, use that to help to bring others to be reconciled to God. This isn’t just about us coming alongside people with our own empathy and compassion, but pointing them to the suffering Savior who is the Source of these blessings. Very often when people suffer they pull back from God, so our priestly role is to point to Him and encourage them to be reconciled, either as struggling believers, or as those who are still outside the faith but whose troubles have softened their hearts. 

Each believer needs to understand his or her vital priestly role within the church, (and perhaps beyond) and accept the suffering that it involves as we follow Him.

Consider

• When have you most experienced the Lord as the Father of compassion and God of all comfort?
• What opportunities has He given you to minister the comfort that He has given you to others, perhaps even ministering in the midst of suffering? 
• How have you administered your priestly role? Have you been aware of it?

Pray

Lord, open my eyes to see the hurting ones around me to whom You want me to minister Your comfort and compassion. Help me to point others to You, especially from the hope and strength You’ve given me in my own suffering.

“If Your law had not been my delight, then I would have perished in my affliction...I am severely afflicted, O Lord; revive me through Your word” (Psalm 119:92, 107). (see also, vv. 50, 71, 153)

“For everything that was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).

It was very tempting just to fill today’s reading with Scriptures that pertain to and encourage us in our suffering. The Bible flows with them like honey dripping from the hive, and they are intended to be a lifeline to us in times of trial. 

When we look at Jesus, we see how much the Scriptures meant to Him in times of trial. When He was under temptation in the wilderness, He answered the devil’s enticements away from God’s will with the Word. When He was on the cross, His final statements were largely drawn from Scripture. Frequently, when suffering the scornful barbs of the Jewish leaders, He would say, “Have you not read…?” We can see how Jesus constantly turned to the words of God, and we would do well to follow Him in that practice, especially when we suffer. 

As today’s verses tell us, the Word of God is vital to us. Delighting in them revives us and keeps us from perishing in affliction. God intended them not only to instruct us, but to encourage us in suffering, so that we will have hope. This is because it is in the Scriptures that we learn about the character, purposes, and promises of God. We learn things about God’s nature (such as our verses yesterday), and come to know that He is our Father, our Comforter, our Strength and Shield, our ever-present help in times of trouble. In them we learn that He, too, suffered, and wants to be with us in the midst of our own. 

As we’ve seen, the Scriptures testify to the fact that God has purpose in the suffering we endure. This fact gives us the ability to better persevere in the midst of pain. But the Word is also overflowing with His promises, such as that He will never leave us nor forsake us, that our suffering will result in glory, that enduring persecution will bring eternal rewards, and so many more.

Consider

• How many of God’s promises do you know? Which ones have helped you most during trials? What are you doing to fortify yourself with promises?
• How has knowing God’s character from the Word helped you trust Him in suffering? How can studying this more help you face future trials?
• How do you use the Word when faced with temptation?

Pray

Lord, Your Word has indeed been my lifeline in suffering. Thank You for Your precious promises and the revelations of Your compassion and care. Help me to fortify myself more and more in Your truth, and find hope, comfort, and power.

“Is anyone of you suffering? He should pray” (James 5:13a).

“Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor Me” (Psalm 50:15).

“In my distress I called upon the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From His temple He heard my voice, and my cry for His help reached His ears” (Psalm 18:6).

Jesus was a Man of prayer. It was His habit to get alone with His Father, but we also see examples of specific times He prayed, most particularly His times of suffering. These give us a glimpse and examples of how we should pray when we suffer. Knowing that His suffering was coming, He prayed that God would be glorified. In Gethsemane, Jesus was in great agony of spirit and prayed “with loud cries and tears” He pleaded that “the cup” would be removed, if possible. He prayed, nevertheless, for His Father’s will to be done. On the cross He cried out His feelings of forsakenness, He prayed that God would forgive those who had caused His suffering, and He trustingly committed His Spirit to the Father. 

Not only did Jesus pray for Himself, He prayed for His followers. In His prayer recorded in John 17, He prayed for those the Father had given Him to be protected and kept safe, especially from “the evil one”; that the Scriptures would be fulfilled; His followers would be given the full measure of His joy; they’d be sanctified by the Word; for unity between believers and union with the Godhead; and that they would see His glory. In other Scriptures we are told that He continues to intercede with us for Heaven (Heb. 7:23-25); He advocates for us when we sin (1 Jn. 2:1); and He intercedes for us when we’re accused so we can’t be condemned (Rom. 8:34; Zech. 3). 

From His examples and instructions, we learn that we should pray that we don’t enter or fall in temptation, especially under trial; when we are in agony we need to cry out to the Father, yet pray that we will be willing for His will no matter what the cost. We should pray to forgive those who cause us to suffer; we should continue to cry out to God, even when we feel forsaken by Him; and we should entrust ourselves into His hands during our suffering. We also should follow His example of interceding for others in their suffering—not just that it would end, but in the many spiritual ways His and other biblical prayers instruct.

Consider

• What can you learn from Jesus’ example of prayer when He was facing temptation and trial? Which of His prayers have you most needed?
• What have you noticed about the focus of Jesus’ prayers, and perhaps other biblical prayers, such as Paul’s (Eph. 1:15-21; 3:14-21; Phil. 1:3-6, 9-11; Col. 1:9-14; 1 Thes. 5:23; see 2 Cor. 8-11)? How would these fortify us in suffering?

Pray

Lord, thank You for showing me how to pray when I suffer, and how to better lift up others. May I take my agony (and that of others) to Your throne of grace and find Your mercy, strength to endure, and Your compassionate heart.

“All who want to live a godly life will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).

“A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also” (John 15:20a).

On Day 23 we looked at Hebrews 12:2-3, where we were told to fix our eyes on Jesus, who endured opposition from sinful men, so we wouldn’t grow weary and lose heart when we suffer our own persecution. This opposition can come at us directly or in more subtle ways. It can affect our reputation, livelihood, social connections, and even our physical well-being. The suffering of persecution can come to us from the world around us, the barbs of the devil, or, sadly, from within the church (as we can see in the Bible, both Jesus and Paul suffered under the hands of so-called God-followers, and so might we). 

Scripture tells us to expect persecution, and not be surprised, but as the spiritual darkness deepens in the US and attacks on Christians become more blatant, a lot of people are acting as if they are surprised. We shouldn’t be, not only have we been warned by the Word, we’ve seen it throughout history and around the world. Scripture also tells us how we are to react to the suffering of persecution: we are to rejoice and not retaliate. But a look around social media will show far more complaining about ill treatment than rejoicing that we’ve been counted worthy. And many are far more likely to return insult for insult rather than love their enemy, do good to those who hurt them and pray for those who persecute them (Mt. 5:44). The Word also warns us not to seek or provoke persecution; we’re to be persecuted for Christ’s sake not our own.

The encouraging aspect of suffering persecution is that there are promises attached. Yes, we are promised that we will face persecution, but more heartening are the promises that those who are persecuted for Christ’s sake will have their losses more than compensated, inherit the kingdom of Heaven, and they will be greatly rewarded there. The pain of persecution is also something that enables us to participate in the sufferings of Jesus, which draws us deeper into fellowship with Him. It is for those reasons we are to rejoice and be glad, trusting in God to turn our suffering into glory.

Consider

• What is your initial reaction when you face persecution for Jesus’ sake? Do you rejoice or complain? How can you love, do good to, and pray for your enemy?
• What should you be doing to prepare for the inevitable persecution ahead as the world grows more anti-Christ?

Pray

Lord, I am more likely to complain than rejoice when I suffer persecution. Help me to fix my eyes on You and learn to react as You did. I’m so grateful You loved me when I was Your enemy; help me to love, do good and pray for mine.

“For since He Himself was tempted in that which He suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted” (Hebrews 2:18).

Make no mistake about it, temptation is suffering—at least it should be. Too many of us give in to temptation so quickly that there is little or no suffering involved—until the tempter who enticed us into sin becomes the accuser who quickly condemns us for our weakness, causing us to suffer shame. 

Stuart Rochester suggests that “giving into temptation is often based on an unwillingness to suffer the consequences of telling the truth, to suffer loss of reputation, or to suffer the pain of unfulfilled emotional or physical needs and desires. But it is necessary for followers of Jesus to embrace suffering.” And Paul Miller says, “Almost all failures with sexual temptation have a strong self-pity or suffering-avoidance side to them, even if it is nothing but the suffering of saying no to your own desires.” That could really apply to any kind of temptation we face; we just aren’t very good at suffering self-denial of what we desire. 

Our verse tells us that Jesus suffered under temptation, and He really suffered, because He alone has endured every temptation all the way to victory. Having done so, He is able to help us because, first, He knows how hard it is to resist, so He sympathizes with our weakness, and second, He has promised to give us ways of escape so we can bear the temptation if we will turn to Him. 

Jesus has either demonstrated or commanded the best ways for escape. In the prayer He taught His disciples, He instructed us to pray, “…lead us not into temptation,” and in Gethsemane He told His disciples multiple times to watch and pray so they wouldn’t fall into temptation. How many times might we not have fallen into temptation if we’d only obeyed Him in this? A second way we looked at on Day 25—the Word; Jesus used it powerfully when He was tempted, and so should we. Verses like, “even Jesus did not please Himself” and “I delight to do Your will, O God” should encourage us to stand strong in Him, as we participate in His suffering in temptation. Thirdly, we look back to our focus on valuing the Lord more than we value our desires; our love for Him enables us to overcome.

Consider

• Sin grieved Jesus SO much; how much does your sin grieve you? Enough to make you flee sin at the first sign of temptation?
• Which of the means of escape in the last paragraph do you need to strengthen in your life so you are able to suffer the pain of self-denial?
• How does it help you to know that Jesus steadfastly loves and prays for you when you are tempted, and even when you fall?

Pray

Lord, help me to love You more than I love my desires. Help me to embrace the pain of self-denial, so I can fellowship with You in Your suffering, and be holy. 

“When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly”(1 Peter 2:23-24).

“So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should entrust their souls to their faithful Creator and continue to do good” (1 Peter 4:19).

“Suffering has the power to expose what you have been trusting all along” (Paul David Tripp). With Jesus, it was clear in Whom He was trusting; He believed that God would love, sustain, resurrect, vindicate and glorify Him, no matter what suffering He endured along the way. Spurgeon tells us that we only trust what we know–and Jesus knew His Father intimately, and trusted His character, His Word, and His purposes. We learn much by looking to Him.

One thing we saw in Jesus was that His trust wasn’t stoic: there was great emotion as He sweat drops of blood in the Garden, trusting in God’s will despite the cost; when He cried out His forsakenness, yet soon after, He entrusted His spirit to His Father who He was fully confident had unbroken love for Him. We know that in our pain we don’t have to keep a stiff upper lip to indicate that our faith in Him remains steadfast; we too can cry out in our agony and still trust Him.

We also know our trust will be tested and proven in the fire of suffering (1 Pet. 1:7), just as Jesus’ trust in the Father was on full display as He clung steadfastly to Him in obedience no matter what suffering He faced. In our case, the testing helps to strengthen our faith; and, whether it is Jesus’ case or ours, as we stand the test, entrusting ourselves to the Father, our faith in Him becomes a testimony to His faithfulness and love for us (2 Thes. 1:4). 

We show that we trust Him when, like Jesus, we don’t allow our suffering to turn us from Him, instead we use it to draw us to Him. Even when He felt forsaken, Jesus addresses the Father as, “My God,” showing that He was still clinging in faith to the One who had been “pleased” to bruise Him on our behalf. Likewise, when we can say with Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him,” we demonstrate our trust in bold terms. “A good Christian argues thus: It is God that has put me in this condition...He has done it in wisdom and love; therefore, I will sit down satisfied with my condition” (Thomas Watson).

Consider

• What has suffering exposed regarding what/whom you’ve trusted?
• How does Jesus’ example of trust help you grow in your own?
• If we only trust what we know, how does your trust level show how well you know the Lord, and trust His wisdom, goodness, and love in your pain?

Pray

Lord, help me to suffer well for Your glory, fully entrusting myself to You, and dwell continually in Your Father-love, even in suffering. May my trust in You be a testimony to my faith in Your steadfast goodness, wisdom, and love. 

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick…” (Proverbs 13:12).

“I am weary with crying; my throat is dry; my eyes fail while I wait for my God”(Psalm 69:3).

“My eyes are weary from waiting to see You keep Your promise to come and save me” (Psalm 119:123).

If we’ve never considered waiting as suffering, then we’ve never had to wait for a significant period of time, especially while in dire circumstances, like the long-term loss of a job, a difficult diagnosis, infertility issues, or a host of other lingering needs or desires which go unmet. These and many other Scriptures testify that the suffering of waiting is a common ache in the lives of mankind. 

However, there is not only pain in waiting, there is purpose, perspective, and promise involved as well. The Lord is doing something within the wait, even if it’s not what we’re looking for. “Waiting is not just about what [we] get at the end of the wait, but about who [we] become as [we] wait” (Paul Tripp). Bob Sorge tells us, “When you’re in crisis and have His promise of deliverance, but there’s no change in sight, the heat can become very hot indeed! His purpose in the delay is to strengthen our faith, kindle our love to new depths of passion and maturity, and impart the heart and character of Christ to us—all in order to make us a more useful vessel.” We need to trust in God’s purpose for the wait.

The perspective we need when we wait is that we are not waiting on an outcome, we are waiting on God. The psalmist urges us to “wait on the Lord, be strong and take courage and wait on Him”, “...to wait patiently, and to wait on Him as eagerly as the watchmen wait for morning” (Ps. 27:14; Ps. 40; Ps. 130:5-6). We aren’t to fix our eyes on our issue, but on Him and what He says in His Word. 

In the Word there are many promises and reassurances attached to waiting. Peter tells us, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promises as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (1 Pet. 3:9). Habakkuk remind us that there is an appointed time, and that the end is even hastening, but “if it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay” (Hab. 2:3). We would do well to familiarize ourselves with verses which instruct and encourage us in our waiting on Him. 

Consider

• What have been your most painful times of waiting? How has God gotten you through? What Scriptures have been the most helpful?
• How does knowing the character and promises of God help you to wait?
• What character has formed in you during the suffering of waiting?

Pray

Lord, waiting can be painful, but may my waiting on You draw me closer, strengthen my ability to trust you, and deepen my experience of Your faithfulness and love. Give me a clearer vision of You and increase my love as I wait.

“We do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15).

“My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). 

Weakness is something we tend to despise in ourselves and in other people. We tend to downplay or disguise our own weaknesses and amplify those of others. When we suffer we tend to feel weak and impotent, dependent, and vulnerable. We fail to realize what a needy, dependent people we all really are. The illusions of control and strength that we cling to are quickly blown away by suffering and setbacks, so we spend a lot of energy fighting weakness.

But God’s economy turns that human perspective on its ear. God has compassion for and strengthens the weak; He longs to supply our needs and chooses the weak to shame the strong (1 Cor. 1:27). “How is a weak Christian able, not only to endure affliction but to rejoice in it? He is upheld by the arms of the Almighty” (Thomas Watson). It is by discovering God’s perspective on weakness, through what the Word reveals about Jesus as our Example and our Helper, that we learn to embrace weakness, not as suffering but as our strength. 

Jesus is our example because when He took on flesh He came as a helpless infant, got weary and needed to rest, needed food and water, and He was crucified in weakness (2 Cor. 13:4). He accepted the weaknesses (excluding the moral weakness) in order that He could be our fully sympathetic High Priest. This sympathy, according to Dane Ortlund, “is not cool and detached pity.” It’s even deeper than the kind of solidarity that parents have with children. “In our pain, Jesus is pained; in our suffering, He feels the suffering as His own even though it isn’t—not that His invincible divinity is threatened, but in the sense that His heart is feeling drawn into our distress.”

Seeing Jesus’ response to both His own weakness and ours—in both cases embracing them—we can see why “Paul now delights in his weakness, because weakness makes Christ fresh. Weakness is the location where he knows Jesus... He doesn’t just know about Jesus, he inhabits Jesus’ poverty of spirit 

Consider

• In what ways do you despise weakness in yourself? In others?"
• In what areas in your life are you weak? Do you embrace or fight them?
• How does looking at Jesus and Paul affect your view of weakness?
• How has God used weakness in your life?

Pray

Lord, help me to embrace the suffering of weakness and dying to self as Your will for me. Help me to see it from Your perspective and follow the examples of Jesus and Paul. In Your love, make Your strength perfect in my weakness.

“My sins have been bound into a yoke” (Lamentations 1:14a).

“But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him” (Isaiah 53:5).

“Therefore, since Christ suffered in His body, arm yourselves with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin” (1 Peter 4:1).

It might seem strange to put Sin in the Like Christ section since Jesus never sinned, but as our last verse says, we are to arm ourselves with the same attitude as Jesus had about sin. He willingly suffered and died for our sin and we are to die to our sin, whatever suffering that would entail. The Lord abhors sin so much that He was willing to pay an unfathomable price in suffering and death to rid us of sin so we could be with Him. If we truly are His, there should be a deepening abhorrence of sin in our lives and a willingness to die to self and its desires, to rid ourselves of sin, no matter the cost. 

Sometimes we think of sin as the wrong things we do, but those are only the symptoms of the real disease. At its essence sin is loving wrongly. Instead of loving the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, we choose to give that place of preference to ourselves. We want to please self and fulfill all of self’s desires. We don’t want self to suffer the pain of denial; instead we give in to our cravings and exalt self over the Lord and others. In practice, we love self with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. 

In the end, we really don’t prevent self from suffering when we give into it, we just suffer differently. Spiritually we suffer detachment from God: weakness, fruitlessness, and lack of joy. Physically we may become ill, suffer consequences from our bad choices, and even death (1 Cor. 11:30; Rom. 2:9). Relationally we will have strained or isolated connections because of our selfishness. Our sins of self-life really do become a painful yoke that binds us. 

But looking at Jesus we see that the suffering we experience when pursuing the Father’s will doesn’t preclude joy. Choosing to die to sin and self is the only true way to experience the fullness of God’s loving presence, peace, and power. 

Consider

• How does having Jesus’ attitude help you in your fight against sin?
• How does viewing sin as wrongly loving change your perspective?
• Where has self-love gotten in the way of your relationship with God? With people? How has it caused you to suffer?

Pray

Lord, help me to be more aware of how my sinful words, deeds, and atttudes are symptoms of my self-life. Convict me of how my sinful self-life is an affront to You, so I can truly love You with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Help me to love You so much that I can’t even conceive of grieving You by my sin.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who...taking on the very nature of a servant...He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-9).

“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (John 13:14-15).

Servanthood is a suffering wrapped up in regular denial of and dying to self, in favor of seeing to the well-being of others. The way of the world is to seek to be served, because self is a demanding tyrant. The disciples readily bought into this mindset of the natural man, even as they looked forward to the kingdom of God. Where they would rank in that hierarchy seemed to be a regular point of contention among them, with Mama going to bat for some (Mt. 20:20-28). 

As we so often see with Jesus, His kingdom’s operating system boots up quite differently than the world’s model. Both by words and examples, Jesus points us to a new way. For Him, and for us, the road to up is down. He had humbled Himself to come to us, He declared Himself a servant (Lk. 22:27; Mk. 10:42-45), and He demonstrated His love through self-sacrifice all the way to death so we can live. 

It is not that we aren’t to seek “greatness” (meaning esteem), but Jesus said that we aren’t to seek it the way we think. We aren’t to lord it over others, but serve them. Nor should we strive to be the top dog, but to look after the needs of others, trusting that God will raise and esteem those He knows can exhibit the kind of servant leadership He modeled and designed for His kingdom.

To follow Jesus in servanthood there needs to be a lot of self-emptying. We need to examine our hearts for our ever-present need to please ourself, and for wrong motives when we do serve. Are we serving to be noticed? Then our reward is the esteem of man, not God (Mt. 6:1). Is the attitude we project one of martyrdom? Once again, we are seeking the honor of man and losing the esteem of God. 

Our motivation for servanthood is to be the same as His—love. So, while it is good to be alert for our motives in serving/being served, it is even more foundational that we grow in our experience of knowing and returning God’s love, so that it will supernaturally overflow into love for and service to others. 

Consider

• If you ask the Lord to reveal your servant attitude quotient, what do you think you will see? How voracious is your self-seeking tyrant?
• What is your attitude when you serve? To be noticed? Martyrdom? Love?
• How does serving from His attitude draw you into the fellowship of His love?

Pray

Lord, my inner tyrant is drawn to comfort and pleasing myself, not the suffering of laying down my life in daily service to others. Help me to join with Your heart and overflow with Your servant-love flowing through me to others, for Your glory.

“I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death” (Philippians 3:10).

“For just as we share in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ” (2 Corinthians 1:5).

How badly do we want to be close to the Lord? Are we willing to echo Paul’s bold declaration that we want to know and be united with Christ so much that we want to share in His sufferings and become like Him in death? The fact is, this is the way that Jesus has said we have fellowship with Him. We have been promised not only His presence and comfort when we suffer, but have been told that we will only reign with Him if we suffer with Him (2 Tim. 2:12). Peter even tells us to “rejoice that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed at the revelation of His glory” (1 Peter 4:13). 

Choosing not to suffer (including not denying self) is choosing not to fellowship with Him in suffering. Choosing to fix our eyes on our misery (instead of turning in fellowship with Him in our suffering) robs us of all the comfort, peace, strength, joy, love and presence He brings. It truly seems that those who walk most in His presence have walked in union with Him through paths of suffering and sorrow.

Do we suffer physically? Jesus has suffered beyond what any human has endured in body and spirit. Do our family and friends misunderstand or alienate themselves from us? Jesus’ family did as well. Have we been maligned, lied and gossiped about? Jesus faced that continually. Have we felt abandoned and betrayed? Jesus knows that heartache. There is no pain nor sorrow in our heart where Jesus cannot or will not meet with us in fellowship and comfort. 

Very often suffering makes us feel isolated, but it is meant to draw us into deeper union with the Lord. After we meet Him there, His fellowship, comfort, and strength can overflow into the lives of fellow sufferers (2 Cor. 1); and we find that, instead of isolating us, suffering actually unites us with others, as the body of Christ together fellowships with our Suffering Savior. 

Consider

• How would you answer the questions in the first paragraph?
• How has the Lord’s comfort abounded to you? Or what have you missed out on because you haven’t sought His presence in suffering and death?
• How can you turn your eyes from your misery and turn your focus to Him?
• How has suffering isolated you? What can you do to turn outward?

Pray

Lord, some of my isolation is fear of vulnerability and further pain. Make me willing to embrace even that kind of suffering if it unites me to You in fellowship and enables me to minister to other sufferers the comfort and strength that You’ve given me. Help me to desire being united in fellowship with You above all else.

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you go through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Isaiah 43:1b-3a). 

Because “a sufferer’s primal need is to hear God talking and experience Him purposefully at work” (David Powlison), I thought it was important to expand on yesterday’s theme of fellowshipping with Christ in His sufferings, by diving deeper on how God meets us in our pain. Powlison continues, “When you hear, take to heart, and know He is with you, everything changes even when nothing has changed in your situation.” God’s with-ness is the vital thing in suffering. 

When we suffer, we have the opportunity to meet God in new ways. Suffering can shatter a lot of our preconceived notions about God–which can be jarring at first. We find out that He’s not as tame and controllable as we once thought, rather He’s sovereign, mighty, and beyond our understanding. We also find out more about the intimate side of God. As with our opening verse, we hear His words of reassurance, His promises of nearness and protection. Those passages will jump out at us like never before, opening our eyes to His heart.

In fact, before we suffered, we might never have had need to meet Him as our Provider, Healer, Comforter, Encourager, Companion in sorrow, or compassionate Father. However, when we are threatened with being overwhelmed by the waters rising above our heads and find Him holding us up; or when we walk through the fire and find He is our Companion and Shield, or when our world is shaken and we see that He is our firm foundation in ways we’ve never known in the past; we are indeed meeting God and being met by Him in richer, more personal ways than ever before. 

Our suffering becomes a catalyst–not only for our refinement and the production of godly character in us–it becomes the tabernacle (the word means meeting place) where we are introduced to new aspects of God’s Being that draw us deeper in intimacy with Him, and discover new aspects of His love for us.

Consider

• How has your suffering been a tabernacle for meeting God?
• How has His with-ness changed you, even if your situation didn’t change?
• How have you met God in new ways while suffering? What new aspects of His nature or relationship with you did He reveal? 

Pray

Lord, when difficult times come my way, turn my eyes from my troubles and onto You. Break down my preconceptions and reveal new aspects of Your nature and Your heart to me; help me to meet You in fresh and profound ways. 

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you encounter trials of many kinds” (James 1:2).

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2).

It may seem a bit counter-intuitive to link joy with suffering, but we have seen so many incidents where God turns our worldly logic on its head—the weak are preferred over the strong; the poor are the blessed ones; we die to live, etc. But the verses above, and many others (Rom. 5:3; Mt. 5: 12; Ps. 30:11; Jer. 31:13; Jn. 16:22; Ps.126:5; 1 Thes. 1:6), tell us that there is a strong link between joy and suffering in God’s perspective. 

We don’t rejoice for the suffering but for the fruit of it: the fellowship with Christ which we’ve already explored, the growing godly character in us, the comfort and knowledge of God that that deepens, and we look ahead to the glory on the other side of our crosses, as Jesus did. We will focus more on that glory another day, but for now we will note that joy is mostly found despite the suffering. It is only by intentionally keeping our eyes fixed on God’s perspective, purposes, and presence, and depending on Him that we will find joy and maintain it. 

When we refuse to pursue joy because of a complaining, negative attitude, it dishonors the Lord. This is because it calls into question His ability to meet and sustain us in our suffering. We don’t have to be giddy all the time, but there should be a discernable undercurrent of hope, peace and joy in a believer who is truly meeting God in their suffering. That is a testimony to others (believers and non-believers alike) of the Lord’s sustaining work in our life. Thomas Manton remarks, “If Jesus can be joyful going to the cross, should we not, who have the same Holy Spirit dwelling in us, be joyful in the midst of various trials?”

This is not meant to be a strap to chide us for a lack of joy, but to sharpen us to the idea that joy is a possibility and promise for us when we suffer. We don’t have to double the load of our burden of suffering by adding to it a downcast heart. We can “fix our eyes on Him” and see how He kept the perspective and promise of joy before Him as He bore the cross!

Consider

• How joyful are you when you are facing/undergoing trials? What helps you maintain the perspective and presence of God at those times?
• Who do you know whose intense suffering seems to be infused with joy? What can you learn from them?
• How can we encourage joy in one another when we’re suffering?

Pray

Lord, help me to keep Your perspective, promises, and presence in view when You call me to suffer. May Your Spirit empower me to find my joy in You, despite the suffering, so I can witness to the satisfaction You bring to my heart. 

“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 and be found in Him” (Philippians 3:4-11).

This theme harkens back to the gains and losses idea we looked at earlier in this series. Paul challenges us to decide what it is worth to us to gain Christ. A lot of people are satisfied feeling they have “gained Christ” as their Savior, but have little concept and/or no intention to gain Him as Lord. The problem is, if He isn’t Lord, He isn’t Savior (Lk. 6:46; Mt. 7:21; James 1:22). 

Now, we mustn’t panic unnecessarily, because none of us here on earth ever ceases to struggle with that tug of war over who is on the throne of our lives (Rom. 7). We will constantly find our self-will climbing up on the throne, and having to once more put self in its place by denying or dying to it and submitting to Christ’s lordship. That’s the process of sanctification, and it’s why we’ll need His grace and our vigilant response to His conviction every day of our lives. The issue we must contemplate is this: are we fighting that battle to keep Jesus as Lord of our lives at all, or have we bought into that ancient heresy that is still alive today, that once we are under grace it doesn’t matter how we live? Hopefully we haven’t read this far in this series and are still under that misunderstanding.

The upside to the suffering of this constant endeavor to die to self is that it demonstrates that we do indeed value the Lord over all other desires. And we maintain that vision of His value by choosing to live a life that seeks to elevate Him above all. We do that by asking Him to help us see Him, value Him, and love Him as we ought, and to convict us when anything else begins to eclipse Him in our desires. In fact, this habit of talking with Him—expressing our dependence, our praises, confessing the sins He points out, giving Him thanks, and fellowshipping with Him—helps us to grow in our nearness and dearness with Him. Looking into His Word to gaze on Him there and learn from Him is another way we add to our gaining Christ. The reality is, although we never fully gain Him here on earth, He never tires of giving us more and more of Himself as we seek Him.

Consider

• Are you gaining Him as Lord, or have you been satisfied with the idea of Him as Savior?
• How have you been challenged to pursue His lordship?
• How has suffering helped you to focus in on the greatness of His worth?
• How has suffering increased your desire for Him?
• How does your suffering by self-denial show the value you place on Christ?

Pray

Lord, open my eyes to see You more and more as the Treasure that You are. Help me to see how adored You are by Your Father, the inestimable value of Your character, the beauty of Your sacrificial love. Extinguish my longing for what is worthless, and fan the flames of my desire to gain You, whatever it costs me. 

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

What can separate us from the love of God? Read the above verse. What can make us feel separated from the love of God? Read the above verse. Sometimes when we are enduring suffering like tribulation, distress, persecution, destitution, or danger we can feel separated from God. We can wonder where He is or why He would allow it, but what we feel should never be confused with what is factually stated in His Word. When we suffer, as we have learned, we must turn to the facts—the truth of His Word, His statements and promises—and take hold of them by faith with both hands and hang on tightly. 

Scripture is full of evidence of God’s with-ness, no matter what the suffering. Many psalms speak to this, but most particularly Psalm 139, where David tells us that neither heights nor depths, distant lands or darkness, the hiddenness of the womb or the recesses of our hearts and minds are void of the personal presence of the Lord—and for His children it is our Father’s loving presence. We must let such truth soak deeply into our hearts to carry us through hardship. 

The upside of down times is that He sticks to us better than any adhesive known to man. Not only do we have the oft-repeated promises that He is with us and will never leave nor forsake us—or that no one can snatch us from His hand—but when we are saved something transformative happens to us. We are united to Him. Christ is in us and we are in Him. This union is indissoluble.

When we suffer we often find ourselves clinging to Him, but the reality is that we can grow in the utmost confidence that He is all the while clinging to us, and who or what is strong enough to take us from Him? We are not only safely in His possession, we are safely in His love. Our suffering doesn’t separate us from His love; even our failures of faith or sin during our suffering will not separate us from Him. When we are His, we are His forever. When we are suffering, that is what we most need to cling to and experience the fact that nothing—no thing, no one, no force—can separate us from God’s love.

Consider

• When is it that you feel most separated from God? When closest?
• How has God shown you His with-ness, particularly in suffering?
• What does it mean to you that God sees, hears, and responds to you?

Pray

Lord, it moves my heart to think of all the ways You meet us in Your compassion. Help me to trust that nothing in my life can separate me from Your love, not even my own failures. Help me to respond in trust to Your overtures of love. 

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles...For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4a). 

“My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life” (Psalm 119:50).

We have touched before on how Trinitarian the quality of comfort is in the heart and outworkings of God. In fact, His comfort is so precious to the sufferer that one ninety-year-old saint said, “I have served the Lord for so long now that I can hardly tell the difference between a blessing and a trial” (RT Kendall). Spurgeon agrees, stating, “The sympathy of Jesus is the next most precious thing to His sacrifice.” 

The difference between suffering without the sense of His comfort and being immersed in it comes primarily from our focus. If we want to know and grow in our experience of God’s comfort in our suffering we must know His character, trust in Him (we don’t trust what we don’t know), learn what He has promised us, and seek His presence (of course, that is sourced in His Word and Spirit). Some people never experience God’s comfort because they don’t know to expect it. They think of Him solely as a God of wrath or they have yet to know Him as the One who lovingly gave His life for them and is eager to restore relationship with them. Even professing believers can misapprehend God because they haven’t spent enough time in the Word and in fellowship with Him to know Him as He has revealed Himself. We miss so much if we fail in this area. 

“Those who do grow to know God, trust His promises, and dwell more and more in His presence, come to learn that His kind of comfort is so much more than a mere pat on the head, or a cold and logical reassurance that it will get better by and by,” suggests Michael Emlet, “The essence of God’s comfort is this: ‘I am here. I am with you. You are mine. You can trust Me.” What comfort there is in being fully assured of these things!

Consider

• What do you know about God’s promises of comfort from His Word? What about His character? How do these help you trust Him as you suffer?
• How has God comforted you in suffering? If you’ve lacked that, why?
• How has God expressed His with-ness in the Scriptures, and how has that comforted you? How have you experienced His with-ness in suffering?

Pray

Lord, help me to experience Your comfort in suffering, not just for my ease, but so that I can know You more intimately, and be drawn to love and worship You more. Help me, too, to share Your comfort with others who suffer. 

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” (Romans 12:1).

“When most people think of worship, they think of singing. But, did you know that suffering is another way of worshipping? If we suffer for Jesus—invest our suffering in our character to become more like Jesus—then, our suffering is a way of worshipping” (Mark Driscoll). This, in part, is because worship has historically been about sacrifice. It’s possible we’ve lost a sense of that in the Western world, because we come into our comfortable worship centers, with our designer coffee brews in hand, listen to well-practiced music that lifts us up, and we call that worship. In many cases we’ve lost that sense of suffering and loss that has been a part of selecting the best from our flock or giving that widow’s mite in honor of the One who lovingly gave so much for our salvation. 

But suffering can become that holy ground, that sacred space where we meet our Suffering Savior in ways that we never could have designed for ourselves. Imposed suffering has a way of stripping away the temporal, our sense of being in charge, and our frenetic agendas. It leads us into the self-denial form of suffering where we set aside our demands that God fix things our way and in our timing. It calls us to deny our desire to see ourselves as victims, to wallow in bitterness, or to try to wrest control. Self-denial itself can be a form of intentional worship as we die to self, whether or not we are under imposed suffering.

Choosing to present the fullness of who we are to God in daily worship—as much of a sacrifice as it may seem to us—actually gives back to us far more than it costs us. At minimum, worship trades our fears for confidence in the promises of God, including to turn our mourning to joy and to comfort us, giving us gladness from sorrow (Jer. 31:13; Ps. 20:11). It gives us the perspective to see gain where the world sees loss. Worship converts suffering from being self-focused to God-focused; from a detour from our agenda to a direct route to His likeness; from hopelessness to being assured of His purpose; and from isolating us to deeper intimacy with our Suffering Savior. 

Consider

• Define worship as you have seen it. What “spoils” your worship? (Your answer can tell you a lot about whether your worship is self-focused.)
• What does it mean to you to present yourself to God as worship? How are you doing that?
• How can you be more intentional about turning suffering to worship?

Pray

Lord, show me if I worship comfort more than I worship You, and if my service is geared toward me rather than You. Redeem my suffering and use it to draw me more deeply into intimacy with You, and then to overflow into worship.