Week Three - Observation 2

I'm enjoying this morning writing time better than in the evening.  It gets me going in the right direction early on and I don't run into the conflicts I was in the evenings.  Hope it's working out better for you as well!

It's been such a joy for me to have my son, Robert Poling, here for the last couple of days.  He's a grown-up man (42), but he's always my little boy in my heart.  He's a great son, husband, father and brother.  I couldn't be prouder of him.   But the thing I'm proudest of him for is the fact that strives to be a faithful Christian and that he leads his family to follow Christ.  It's so good to see the legacy of faith continue to future generations.  I know that my grandparents were all faithful believers and I cannot help but think that their prayers for their children and grandchildren have affected me and my walk of faith.  Likewise, I pray for my children and grandchildren to stay faithful and true to God's Word, no matter what the future brings.  

Today we're going to look at Christ's example of suffering and how we should emulate Him.  That's a tough assignment, knowing that Jesus was perfect.  But that is our goal - to become Christ-like.  So we need to always look to see how Jesus responded to things in order to know how we, put in similar circumstances, should also respond.  The old "WWJD" acronym comes to mind - when faced with difficult circumstances and trying to determine our course of action under pressure, "what would Jesus do?" is a very good first consideration.  And to answer that question, we have to know our Jesus, we have to study the Word and understand who He really was and how He really lived.

Remember the question we're posing this week?  Why does God allow people, especially believers in Him, to suffer and why does He permit pain in our lives?

And our verse to memorize:  

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us."  Romans 8:18

OBSERVATION:  

1 Peter 2:21-24  "For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in His steps.  He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth; when reviled, He did not revile in return; when suffering, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to the One who judges justly.  He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness; by His wounding you have been healed."

Hebrews 5:8  "Though a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered."

Ok, jumping into these passages and seeing what we need to see.  And the very first thing I see is that we are called to something, and that something is in the immediately preceding verse of 1 Peter, "But when you do good and suffer...".  That's our calling as Christians - to continue to do good in the face of suffering.  That's a great marketing tool for Christianity, isn't it?  "Come join us, do good things for others, and suffer."  But what did we talk about yesterday?  When you truly align yourself with Christ, you become an enemy to this world, now ruled by satan (I never give him the honor of capitalizing his name).  With that alignment, we open ourselves up to a myriad of possibilities of  suffering.  But we are not given license to suffer with responses to our suffering that lower ourselves to the level of those who oppose us.  

We've been given the perfect example of someone who suffered strong (as Connie put it yesterday).  Our Jesus Christ.  He is our example - we should follow in His steps.  When Jesus was taken before the authorities (both Jewish and Roman), He never let the enemy take anything away from His perfection.  He never broke, never spoke words that could be counted as sinful or deceitful.  How satan would have loved for Jesus to, at that very moment in the course of God's redemptive plan, forfeited His perfection and destroyed His ability to redeem mankind.  But our Jesus stood strong and did not sin.

Scripture above says that when Jesus was reviled, He did not revile in return.  Revile, as used here, means to verbally abuse.  When the Roman soldiers mocked Jesus, He did not respond in a like manner at all. Luke 22:63-65 says, "The men who were holding Jesus started mocking and beating Him.  After blindfolding Him, they kept asking, 'Prophesy!  Who hit you?' And they were saying many other blasphemous things against Him."  Jesus could have come back and returned their mocking - He could have thrown out statements that revealed to them their weak mortal status in comparison to His all-powerful heavenly status as God's one and only Son.  But even though He could have, He did not.  He did not engage in a battle of taunts and one-uppance.  He could have threatened them with His supernatural ability to kill them on the spot.  But He did not.  He did not have to.  

For Peter tells us the most important thing that Jesus did while suffering - He committed Himself to the One who judges justly.  Jesus put Himself in God's hands and let God direct the scene in which He was now involved.  Jesus knew that God's purposes were greater than His personal pain.  He knew the plan, and He was obedient.

That is where Jesus has an advantage over us - He did know exactly what He was supposed to do, and He followed God's directive.  We do not always have that clear picture.  But, as Peter says, we do have an example of how we should respond to suffering - and that is trusting our God and His purposes and not overriding them with what would be better for us in the moment.  Because Jesus suffered strong and obeyed His Father, we received the redemption only He could bring to us.  He obeyed, and He took all of our sins, ALL of EVERYONE's sins, to the cross and through His death, all of our spiritual disease, rot and decay were healed forever.

We have a perfect example of suffering in Jesus, but we also have examples through all the apostles' lives.  And throughout Christian history, we continue to have examples over and over of those who have suffered strong, even to death.  In more modern history, we have examples such as Richard Wurmbrand, the founder of Voice of the Martyrs. If you have never seen the movie of his life, "Tortured for Christ", I strongly recommend watching.  He and his wife suffered for the Gospel in such truly Christ-like ways.  It is humbling to watch.  We need to look and study these examples of suffering and commit to following in their steps, and pray for the Holy Spirit to empower us in the same way He did for these faithful followers.

             

The writer of Hebrews relays to us what all of them learned through suffering:  obedience.  Even Jesus, in his humanity, "learned" obedience.  In his humanity, Jesus could have walked away.  The Apostles could have abandoned the cause.  Richard Wurmbrand could have said it wasn't worth it.  But they all were called, and they all obeyed.  Whatever God calls you to, do what He is asking of you.  Big or small.  Painful or not.  Obedience is paramount.  It is what keeps us in the will of God and involved in His purposes...purposes that are so much bigger than we can imagine.  Let's not miss what He may be asking us to do for His Kingdom.  We may suffer, but our suffering will only make the ultimate victory that much sweeter to us.  Obedience - in all things.

In His Amazing Love,

Janice