Following Christ is hard, very hard.
Christianity is sometimes falsely viewed as a ticket to prosperity and
ease. Although our souls prosper under
God’s grace, the Bible makes it clear that Christians will suffer as they go
through their pilgrimage on earth but there is a beauty in it, which far
exceeds the hardships. There is an irresistible beauty in oneness with Christ,
who suffered far more than we ever will though, unlike us, he did not deserve
to suffer. He willingly suffered the wrath of God on the cross for the sake of
his people. All creation, including
believers, suffers because of man’s sin and living in a fallen world. Believers
also partake in Christ’s sufferings, but only see God’s mercy. We will never
have to know the suffering due us for our iniquities. His yoke is easy and his
burden is light (Matthew 11:38.)
There are a few ways
in which we suffer. Although the wrath of God does not fall upon believers,
leading to eternal damnation, he does rebuke and chasten us in merciful love (Revelation
3:19, Hebrews 12) We reap
what we sow and if sinful actions are taken we will see the Lord’s hand of
correction. Sometimes we hear the rebuke quickly as the Spirit convicts us to
repentance. Other times, we go through a season of correction. Even after
repentance, the consequences of sin can stick around for a long time, perhaps
even a lifetime. We see a biblical example of suffering a consequence for sin
in Exodus 24-26, where God addressed Moses’s failure to circumcise his son. In
his commentary, http://biblehub.com/commentaries/exodus/4-24.htm, Matthew Henry
states: “God
met Moses in anger. The Lord threatened him with death or sent sickness upon
him, as the punishment of his having neglected to circumcise his son. When God
discovers to us what is amiss in our lives, we must give all diligence to amend
it speedily. This is the voice of every rod; it calls us to return to Him that
smites us” We also see an example of the Lord’s chastening in the illness
and death of David’s child. The child was conceived out of an adulterous relationship
with Bathsheba. David then attempted to
cover up the situation. This escalated to the murder of Bathsheba’s husband. (2
Samuel 11-12.) Suffering due to sin should be rejoiced in in the same sense as
suffering for the sake of righteousness (1 Peter 4:14-16.) When we suffer for the sake
of righteousness, we partake in Christ’s sufferings and are commanded to
rejoice in these sufferings. In the case of suffering due to sin, there should
be a sorrowing for and repentance of the sins we suffer for as well as a
rejoicing in the mercy of our Father. "It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed,
because his compassions fail not." Lamentations
3:22.
As believers, we strive for growth
in sanctification. Personally, I want to be sanctified, but don’t particularly
enjoy the growth pains. Yet, I know that without trials, I will become too
comfortable in worldly pleasures and will remain stagnant or wander. Trials
push me close to God as I rely on him to carry me through the waters (Isaiah
43:1-2.) I can’t swim through troubled waters alone but thankfully I am
not alone. He besets me behind and
before, and his hand is upon me (Psalm 139:5.) It can be difficult to see the benefit of trials while we are
going through them, and tempting to ask God, why? His ways are higher than our ways and his
thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55: 8.) Although we can’t fully understand what we are
going through, we can have faith- "And we know that all things work together for
good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28.
When looking upon hardships, we should be careful to look at the
situation with a biblical perspective. One of the lessons in Job is that when
we see a brother or sister go through some affliction, we should be very
careful not to make assumptions that it is due to a sin problem. Jobs friends
assumed his trial was due to a sin problem and added to his suffering by
rebuking him and offering poor advice. 1
Samuel 16:17 states: "But the
LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his
stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD sees not as man sees; for man
looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." In our
flesh, we have a tendency to make assumptions about our godliness and the
godliness of others based on appearances. In addition to falsely assessing
someone based their skin color, physique, spiritual gifts, etc., we may look at
material and physical prosperity and assume that being rich in those things
equates being rich in the mercies of God. Psalm 73 and Luke 16-21 show us that
such a correlation cannot be made. We
should also take care not to go the other direction on this and assume a less
prosperous person, who is apparently suffering physically or materially, is
more pious. The Bible also does not make
that correlation, see Matthew 27:57.
Even in
examining ourselves, we should be careful not to look on outward
appearances. We must rely on the Lord to
examine ourselves correctly. In the
past, I erroneously jumped to the conclusion that I did something wrong when I went
through a trial. On the contrary, when I
went through a chastening for a sin problem and assumed it was a trial, the
Lord showed me the sin for which I was suffering. The Holy Spirit will reveal our
sins to us. Because our hearts are
deceitful, we should pray like David in Psalm 139:23-24: "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my
thoughts: And
see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Even if we
don’t pray that way and go through a season of hardness, he will show us our
sins as he is zealous for our progress in sanctification.
God’s
children cannot be identified by outward appearances, nor can their walk with
God be defined by appearances. They are of all skin colors and possess
different gifts. Likewise, they range from wealthy to poor and sick to well. While there are
cases in which, chastening for specific sins brings about a difficult
providence, we cannot assume that all difficult providences are directly reaped
from sin. Often times, they are trials or difficulties the Lord has allowed and
uses to sanctify us. One thing is common among God’s people, no matter how they
look or much physical or material prosperity God has given them, they are poor in spirit, made rich in the
mercies of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and our Father in heaven. While here on earth, all of God’s children
will go through some measure of suffering but in his mercy he meets our needs
as we suffer and prospers our souls.
