To Be Still and Know...Suffering Is Not Always a Punishment
"So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for He will never fail you." 1 Peter 4:19
I was sitting in church yesterday listening to the sermon. We were in 1 Peter 4. I read past the verses my pastor was preaching on and this verse stood out to me as if it were leaping off the page at me. I highlighted it and made a mental to note to come back to it later so as not to take my focus off the message being preached! Now over 24 hours later I have the chance to sit down and focus, well as much as my three always energetic children will allow!
As Christians we are not guaranteed a life free from problems. It's not like the moment we accept Jesus as our Savior our life becomes trouble free and painless. Indeed the opposite is actually true. Sometimes we hear things like that and we spiritually run in the opposite direction. Let's break down this "suffering for doing what is right" issue and hopefully help you to find peace in the middle of the sufferings. When we accept Jesus as our Savior the Devil knows he has lost another soul. Once you make that personal choice to take Jesus into your life and let Him be your Lord and Savior your soul is eternally secure! Knowing this, Satan wants to:
1. Prevent you from being a light for Jesus which brings others to their realization of their need of a Savior and Satan's loss of another soul
2. Cause you to be distracted from God's truths and purpose for your life by multiple means, suffering being one such way. Then you become spiritually weak and not in a close relationship with the Lord and unable to fend off further attacks from Satan.
Plain and simple Satan knows he doesn't have you for eternity, so he wants you to forget that truth and be focused on the temporal sufferings of the here and now and become a discouraged, exhausted, ineffectual, stressed out Christian. Or even worse, a complacent Christian...but that's another post for another day.
First we will discuss suffering as a Christian as a result of unconfessed, undealt with sin in a persons life. As discussed in the previous post, there are times we all need God's correction in our lives. We are not made sinless the moment we get saved and we will never be sinless while we are here on earth. But we are supposed to be actively working on and aware of sin in our lives as we grow in the Lord. When we find that we have slipped into sin we need to confess it (1 John 1:9 *see previous post*) and ask the Lord to help us turn away from that and do better. Everything we do in life brings forth consequences. This is an ongoing lesson I try to instill in my children as they grow. If you have a plant and choose to not water it the consequence is that it will die. If you choose to gossip about someone don't be surprised when that comes back to bite you in the tushy. If you choose to neglect a relationship don't be surprised when that relationship starts to crumble. If you choose not to eat healthy don't be surprised when you don't have energy. The same way with suffering brought on by sin. If you choose to ignore sin in your life and don't deal with it with the Lord, there will be suffering. He will use the suffering to get your attention. "But by means of their suffering, He rescues those who suffer. For He gets their attention through adversity." Job 36:15
Now the kind of suffering 1 Peter is talking about is when you have sufferings and hardships and are walking closely with Lord and dealing with sin as it comes up in your life. This is not a consequence of sin, this is an attack of the enemy. "Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when you faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing." James 1:2-4 And since we know that we will not be perfect here on earth this means that during our lifetime we will have troubles but these are opportunities to strengthen our faith, and humble ourselves and remind us of our need for God. When we take time to be still and realize how quickly our time here on earth is and how we can take nothing with us when we die it will change the way we live our lives. Satan wants us to be distracted trying to "keep up with the Jones'" making us think we have to have to biggest, the newest, or simply just have more and we spend so much time thinking about that we forget what's important. When we get our focus right we realize what's important to leave behind, and that's a legacy of love and grace and kindness and most importantly a life consistently lived for the Lord through both word and action. "Store your treasures in Heaven where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal." Matthew 6:20 Think about this, our eternal lives go on forever, while, at best, our earthly lives will last 80-90 years. I don't know about you but I want to be storing up treasure in my eternal home where nothing is ever broken, worn out or destroyed. Every new thing I have ever bought has either broken, been lost or worn out. Knowing that this doesn't happen to my eternal treasures is so relieving! Also remember that very same thing when it comes to suffering for doing what is right. This life is fleeting, over in a blink of an eye. What God has prepared for those who love Him is beyond our imagination! Hold on to this truth when the hard times come. "And since we are His children, we are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God's glory. But if we are to share His glory, we must also share His suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later." Romans 8:17-18 If you are serving Him and doing what is right, your suffering is not in vain. Keep it up! God sees it when nobody else does and He will reward you. He will give you what you need to make it through the hard times. He will never give up on you or leave you alone to fight through the trials. So I leave you with this verse, be encouraged that God is right there with you through it all.
"And I am certain that God, who began a good work within you, will continue His work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns." Philippians 1:6
Please take a moment to listen to this powerful song! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaA2eHfx5cI
I was sitting in church yesterday listening to the sermon. We were in 1 Peter 4. I read past the verses my pastor was preaching on and this verse stood out to me as if it were leaping off the page at me. I highlighted it and made a mental to note to come back to it later so as not to take my focus off the message being preached! Now over 24 hours later I have the chance to sit down and focus, well as much as my three always energetic children will allow!
As Christians we are not guaranteed a life free from problems. It's not like the moment we accept Jesus as our Savior our life becomes trouble free and painless. Indeed the opposite is actually true. Sometimes we hear things like that and we spiritually run in the opposite direction. Let's break down this "suffering for doing what is right" issue and hopefully help you to find peace in the middle of the sufferings. When we accept Jesus as our Savior the Devil knows he has lost another soul. Once you make that personal choice to take Jesus into your life and let Him be your Lord and Savior your soul is eternally secure! Knowing this, Satan wants to:
1. Prevent you from being a light for Jesus which brings others to their realization of their need of a Savior and Satan's loss of another soul
2. Cause you to be distracted from God's truths and purpose for your life by multiple means, suffering being one such way. Then you become spiritually weak and not in a close relationship with the Lord and unable to fend off further attacks from Satan.
Plain and simple Satan knows he doesn't have you for eternity, so he wants you to forget that truth and be focused on the temporal sufferings of the here and now and become a discouraged, exhausted, ineffectual, stressed out Christian. Or even worse, a complacent Christian...but that's another post for another day.
First we will discuss suffering as a Christian as a result of unconfessed, undealt with sin in a persons life. As discussed in the previous post, there are times we all need God's correction in our lives. We are not made sinless the moment we get saved and we will never be sinless while we are here on earth. But we are supposed to be actively working on and aware of sin in our lives as we grow in the Lord. When we find that we have slipped into sin we need to confess it (1 John 1:9 *see previous post*) and ask the Lord to help us turn away from that and do better. Everything we do in life brings forth consequences. This is an ongoing lesson I try to instill in my children as they grow. If you have a plant and choose to not water it the consequence is that it will die. If you choose to gossip about someone don't be surprised when that comes back to bite you in the tushy. If you choose to neglect a relationship don't be surprised when that relationship starts to crumble. If you choose not to eat healthy don't be surprised when you don't have energy. The same way with suffering brought on by sin. If you choose to ignore sin in your life and don't deal with it with the Lord, there will be suffering. He will use the suffering to get your attention. "But by means of their suffering, He rescues those who suffer. For He gets their attention through adversity." Job 36:15
Now the kind of suffering 1 Peter is talking about is when you have sufferings and hardships and are walking closely with Lord and dealing with sin as it comes up in your life. This is not a consequence of sin, this is an attack of the enemy. "Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when you faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing." James 1:2-4 And since we know that we will not be perfect here on earth this means that during our lifetime we will have troubles but these are opportunities to strengthen our faith, and humble ourselves and remind us of our need for God. When we take time to be still and realize how quickly our time here on earth is and how we can take nothing with us when we die it will change the way we live our lives. Satan wants us to be distracted trying to "keep up with the Jones'" making us think we have to have to biggest, the newest, or simply just have more and we spend so much time thinking about that we forget what's important. When we get our focus right we realize what's important to leave behind, and that's a legacy of love and grace and kindness and most importantly a life consistently lived for the Lord through both word and action. "Store your treasures in Heaven where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal." Matthew 6:20 Think about this, our eternal lives go on forever, while, at best, our earthly lives will last 80-90 years. I don't know about you but I want to be storing up treasure in my eternal home where nothing is ever broken, worn out or destroyed. Every new thing I have ever bought has either broken, been lost or worn out. Knowing that this doesn't happen to my eternal treasures is so relieving! Also remember that very same thing when it comes to suffering for doing what is right. This life is fleeting, over in a blink of an eye. What God has prepared for those who love Him is beyond our imagination! Hold on to this truth when the hard times come. "And since we are His children, we are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God's glory. But if we are to share His glory, we must also share His suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later." Romans 8:17-18 If you are serving Him and doing what is right, your suffering is not in vain. Keep it up! God sees it when nobody else does and He will reward you. He will give you what you need to make it through the hard times. He will never give up on you or leave you alone to fight through the trials. So I leave you with this verse, be encouraged that God is right there with you through it all.
"And I am certain that God, who began a good work within you, will continue His work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns." Philippians 1:6
Please take a moment to listen to this powerful song! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaA2eHfx5cI
Comments
Post a Comment