Our loving God wants his dear children…to suffer!
Dear Christian brothers and sisters:
“Do not be surprised, at the fiery trials that you have to go through as if something strange was happening to you but be glad that you also suffer, just as your Lord Jesus Christ did. (Peter 4: 12 – 13)
Indeed, for one good reason or another, God wants his faithful followers, his chosen people, that he loves…to suffer!
Many Christians will shake their heads in disagreement to this statement.
It is not their experience, and they have been told again and again in church that God wants, expects his children to be happy!
In fact, many of today’s believers have “accepted Christ as their Lord” trusting that they will have a happy, and sheltered life here on earth, under God’s protecting care…
But this is not what God’s Word tells us.
Instead, the Bible urges us “not to be surprised, at the fiery trials that come our way”.
Just about all of God’s children and servants mentioned in the Bible have lived lives filled with hardships and sorrows…
Take for example the prophet Jeremiah, who wrote in the 3rd chapter of his “Lamentations”:
“I am a man who has experienced much affliction by the rod of God’s wrath!
He has made me walk in darkness rather than in light!
He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
He has shut out my prayers and has made my paths crooked, leaving me without help!
He has pierced my heart with many sorrows and made me the laughingstock of everyone.
He has sated me with gall, broken my teeth with gravel, trampled me in the dust, and deprived me of peace”.
“Still, it is a good thing for a man to bear the yoke of affliction while he is young…
Let him sit alone in silence, bury his face in the dust and offer his face to those who beat him.
Yes, let him be filled with disgrace.
For it is the Lord himself who lays all these sufferings on him, since we know very well that both, calamities and good things come because the mouth of the Most High ordained them…
Our God brings grief to us, but he also shows compassion, for he does not willingly bring affliction to the children of men!
He will not cast us off forever.
So, let those whose hope is in God, and seek him, bear quietly their suffering, and wait for the Lord to deliver them from their afflictions!”
(Lamentations of Jeremiah 3: 25 – 33)
From passages like this one, it is clear that our loving God wants his dear children…to suffer!
After all, he ordained much suffering for his only beloved Son, our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, who was to be a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief…
(Isaiah 53: 3)
We, his followers, should not expect better treatment from God than Jesus himself received while on earth!
We must simply be determined to remain faithful to our loving God and allow him to cleanse us of all impurity that remains in our soul…
Gold can only be purified in the fire, and our soul can only be cleansed from its impurities by going through the “fire” of sorrows and afflictions.
There is no other way: Suffering is an integral part of a God centred life!
Expect it, and make sure that you do not try to avoid it when it comes your way, as the world does, by branching off to other, worldly distractions and pleasures in search of finding some comfort there…
So, let us not start doubting God’s goodness when we face much suffering ourselves.
This is the norm for everyone that God accepts as his child! (Hebrews 12: 6- 7)
And if we want to know the “why”, let us concider that God is much more interested in making better people out of us than of making us happy here on earth…
Our hearts will be cleansed better in the fire of afflictions, than in the blessings of a happy life!
Let us also keep in mind that we live in the “last days”, We are to brace ourselves to face the terrible period that is coming, one of untold sufferings that will test our faith to the extreme, so as to prove that we are indeed genuine, faithful followers of Jesus Christ:
The “Mark of the Beast” that has been predicted 2.000 years ago will soon be enforced on all humanity.
We, the faithful children of God, know very well that we are not allowed to accept it on our right hand or forehead, even though we will not be able any more to buy or sell without it.
So, we know very well that we are heading towards much much suffering, imprisonment and beheadings!
We must suffer though all that will come our way, since we have been warned that anyone who accepts this coming Mark of the Beast will receive the full furry of God’s wrath and be tormented with burning sulphur night and day…
(Revelation 14: 9 – 12),
Being surrounded by the example of so many biblical figures such as that of the apostle Paul, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and many others, we must brace ourselves up and be strong.
Let us be thankful when happy and contented for a time, but let us be ready for the worst!