Post by Cindy on Aug 12, 2016 10:28:31 GMT -5
We've heard the expression that we shouldn't take ourselves so seriously, but I don't think we take ourselves seriously enough. I'm speaking of those of us who've been saved, for God has separated us from the rest of the world and made us His holy ones, His Saints. Hearing the word "Saints" makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. Probably because of the way the Catholic Church uses the word, as though sainthood is something we can confer on someone who's lived an exceptional life. Yet the Lord doesn't use the word that way. He says we are ALL Saints. We have all been separated out from the world to be made Holy as He is Holy. So it's not that we already are Holy, but that we're being made Holy as we are conformed into the likeness of Jesus. Knowing that, makes me want to take myself and how I live every day more seriously, because I know that everything that happens is being used to make me more like Jesus. Therefore I want to cooperate with God and make sure that the ways I react to every day circumstances, and the way I speak and write are all in accordance with His perfect Will. It makes me take everything a lot more seriously, because suddenly, this life is not just a game I'm playing and has a much greater purpose than I ever supposed before I was saved.
I've been reading Acts 9 about Paul's conversion and it's really shown me quite a lot. For instance it's pointed out to me again that suffering is part of the Christian's experience. It's something that all Christians are going to go through. But we don't want to suffer. We hate it, and we're always demanding that the Lord make it stop, immediately or sooner! Yet Paul, who suffered greatly, both physically and emotionally, didn't demand that God relieve His pain. Instead he rejoiced in it and tells us to rejoice too! That sounds insane to us. So much so that there have been false teachers from the very start of the church who have tried to tell us that God doesn't want us to suffer and will heal everyone right away if they have enough faith. That's a bunch of hogwash though, as anyone who's studied the bible with the Holy Spirit guiding them can easily see. Jesus not only didn't promise us an easy life, He promised us that we would suffer in this part of our life.
What's amazing to me though isn't that we'll suffer. I've known that for a long time. in Acts 9:5 Paul shows us that Jesus suffers with us, and not only from empathy, but in reality. He dwells within us, and He feels what we feel. He tells us a little of this in Luke 10:16 too. More than that though, He takes it personally when we suffer, whether it's through sickness, or because of someone causing us harm through their words or actions, or because we're being persecuted due to our faith in Him. In other words, no matter what the cause of our suffering is, the Lord hurts with us and for us, and when others cause our hurt, He takes it personally - and remember - He is also interceding for us too! This kind of makes me think of how I hurt when my children are hurting, and how I take it personally if they're hurt by someone else and want to defend them instantly. Of course I usually can't do that, but our God can and will. If not now, then later at judgment day.
In Col 1:24 Paul tells us about filling up in our bodies what's still lacking in our Lord's afflictions for the sake of His body the church. (See also 2 Cor 1:5–6, & 1 Peter 4:13; Romans 8:17) This doesn't mean that what Jesus did wasn't enough, rather that He has given us the opportunity to suffer with Him so that we can also be glorified with Him when our salvation is complete. Remember that Jesus was not glorified until after He suffered. (1 Peter 1:21; Hebrews 2:9) So, like Jesus, we too will not receive glory until we have suffered. “...We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said.” (Acts 14:22) We tend to skim over passages like that because we don't want to suffer, but that doesn't make them any less true. We want the glory but not the suffering. There are a great many passages in the bible that explain exactly what suffering does for us, and how God uses it to conform us to the image of His Son.
As I said, in Acts 9:13 we're called Saints, holy ones, those who are set apart by God to be holy as He is holy. We are priests, & ambassadors of Christ to the world, & our job involves suffering, just as our Lord told Paul in Acts 9:16. We'd like to think that the suffering part is just for Paul, but it's not. Although Jesus was specifically speaking about Paul in this verse, there are more then enough others to show us that we too will suffer if we're really saved. It's part of the job description. “I will show him” in Acts 9:16 includes the idea that the Lord would be present with Paul, as He is with all of us, and point out what he must suffer as well as help him to endure it successfully each time. We often don't realize His presence & help, because we're too busy demanding that the suffering stop!
Remember what Jesus told us in Matthew 6:21 - that where our treasure is, our heart will also be. When He is our treasure, then suffering for Him and with Him will be a blessing, not a curse to get rid of, for we'll know that it will bring Him glory and that, instead of our comfort & happiness, will be our most important goal in life. When that happens, we will find that bringing Him glory makes us happier than anything else ever could, even if others don't understand. Paul shares that it's a blessing when he tells us: “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him,” (Philippians 1:29) Suffering is not the exception, but the norm for Christians in this fallen world. In 2 Corinthians 6:3–10 and 2 Corinthians 11:24–33 Paul shares what some of his sufferings have been. We often read those passages thinking they're bad, but not truly reflecting on them and realizing just how much Paul suffered. We read about how he was beaten and left for dead, but don't consider how much physical pain he must have been in and how long he lived with that pain, and how he himself thought of it as a blessing. Because Paul did suffer so much, he is also able to share with us what God uses that suffering for. He does this in many passages including my favorites: “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (Romans 5:3–5) and “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2–4) "Of many kinds" can be translated "of any kind". In other words, no matter what kind of trial, or how many trials or suffering you endure, we should consider it pure joy because we can know God is using them to make our faith mature and complete, to make us more like Jesus.
There's so much more in the story of Paul's conversion in Acts 9. Consider that our Lord knows that Paul is praying, knows what he's praying about, and at the same time is telling Ananias what he's to do to answer that prayer, while instantaneously giving Paul a vision of Ananias coming to him to answer his prayer! Of course that also shows that He also knew that Ananias was praying and what his prayer was about since He was also answering Him at the same time. It often seems like that was then but not now. However, that's a great picture of what our Lord does every minute of every day with each one of us. The difference is that we often don't realize it's happening. Not because we can't know, but often because we don't take prayer all that seriously, or take what we're doing or going through all that seriously either. To me though, one of the greatest gifts God gives us in Christ when we're saved, is the knowledge of who we are in Him and that we have a tremendously important purpose in our life. Not only that, but He guarantees that our purpose will be realized! Knowing that, gives us a whole different outlook on our selves and our life here. We tend to take everything a lot more seriously than we did before because we realize we are God's holy ones, His Saints, His chosen people, His priests, and ambassadors of Christ. (1 Peter 2:9; 2 Corinthians 5:20) Everything we do, how we react to everything, including suffering, shows the world a picture of God and what He is like.
I've been reading Acts 9 about Paul's conversion and it's really shown me quite a lot. For instance it's pointed out to me again that suffering is part of the Christian's experience. It's something that all Christians are going to go through. But we don't want to suffer. We hate it, and we're always demanding that the Lord make it stop, immediately or sooner! Yet Paul, who suffered greatly, both physically and emotionally, didn't demand that God relieve His pain. Instead he rejoiced in it and tells us to rejoice too! That sounds insane to us. So much so that there have been false teachers from the very start of the church who have tried to tell us that God doesn't want us to suffer and will heal everyone right away if they have enough faith. That's a bunch of hogwash though, as anyone who's studied the bible with the Holy Spirit guiding them can easily see. Jesus not only didn't promise us an easy life, He promised us that we would suffer in this part of our life.
What's amazing to me though isn't that we'll suffer. I've known that for a long time. in Acts 9:5 Paul shows us that Jesus suffers with us, and not only from empathy, but in reality. He dwells within us, and He feels what we feel. He tells us a little of this in Luke 10:16 too. More than that though, He takes it personally when we suffer, whether it's through sickness, or because of someone causing us harm through their words or actions, or because we're being persecuted due to our faith in Him. In other words, no matter what the cause of our suffering is, the Lord hurts with us and for us, and when others cause our hurt, He takes it personally - and remember - He is also interceding for us too! This kind of makes me think of how I hurt when my children are hurting, and how I take it personally if they're hurt by someone else and want to defend them instantly. Of course I usually can't do that, but our God can and will. If not now, then later at judgment day.
In Col 1:24 Paul tells us about filling up in our bodies what's still lacking in our Lord's afflictions for the sake of His body the church. (See also 2 Cor 1:5–6, & 1 Peter 4:13; Romans 8:17) This doesn't mean that what Jesus did wasn't enough, rather that He has given us the opportunity to suffer with Him so that we can also be glorified with Him when our salvation is complete. Remember that Jesus was not glorified until after He suffered. (1 Peter 1:21; Hebrews 2:9) So, like Jesus, we too will not receive glory until we have suffered. “...We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said.” (Acts 14:22) We tend to skim over passages like that because we don't want to suffer, but that doesn't make them any less true. We want the glory but not the suffering. There are a great many passages in the bible that explain exactly what suffering does for us, and how God uses it to conform us to the image of His Son.
As I said, in Acts 9:13 we're called Saints, holy ones, those who are set apart by God to be holy as He is holy. We are priests, & ambassadors of Christ to the world, & our job involves suffering, just as our Lord told Paul in Acts 9:16. We'd like to think that the suffering part is just for Paul, but it's not. Although Jesus was specifically speaking about Paul in this verse, there are more then enough others to show us that we too will suffer if we're really saved. It's part of the job description. “I will show him” in Acts 9:16 includes the idea that the Lord would be present with Paul, as He is with all of us, and point out what he must suffer as well as help him to endure it successfully each time. We often don't realize His presence & help, because we're too busy demanding that the suffering stop!
Remember what Jesus told us in Matthew 6:21 - that where our treasure is, our heart will also be. When He is our treasure, then suffering for Him and with Him will be a blessing, not a curse to get rid of, for we'll know that it will bring Him glory and that, instead of our comfort & happiness, will be our most important goal in life. When that happens, we will find that bringing Him glory makes us happier than anything else ever could, even if others don't understand. Paul shares that it's a blessing when he tells us: “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him,” (Philippians 1:29) Suffering is not the exception, but the norm for Christians in this fallen world. In 2 Corinthians 6:3–10 and 2 Corinthians 11:24–33 Paul shares what some of his sufferings have been. We often read those passages thinking they're bad, but not truly reflecting on them and realizing just how much Paul suffered. We read about how he was beaten and left for dead, but don't consider how much physical pain he must have been in and how long he lived with that pain, and how he himself thought of it as a blessing. Because Paul did suffer so much, he is also able to share with us what God uses that suffering for. He does this in many passages including my favorites: “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (Romans 5:3–5) and “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2–4) "Of many kinds" can be translated "of any kind". In other words, no matter what kind of trial, or how many trials or suffering you endure, we should consider it pure joy because we can know God is using them to make our faith mature and complete, to make us more like Jesus.
There's so much more in the story of Paul's conversion in Acts 9. Consider that our Lord knows that Paul is praying, knows what he's praying about, and at the same time is telling Ananias what he's to do to answer that prayer, while instantaneously giving Paul a vision of Ananias coming to him to answer his prayer! Of course that also shows that He also knew that Ananias was praying and what his prayer was about since He was also answering Him at the same time. It often seems like that was then but not now. However, that's a great picture of what our Lord does every minute of every day with each one of us. The difference is that we often don't realize it's happening. Not because we can't know, but often because we don't take prayer all that seriously, or take what we're doing or going through all that seriously either. To me though, one of the greatest gifts God gives us in Christ when we're saved, is the knowledge of who we are in Him and that we have a tremendously important purpose in our life. Not only that, but He guarantees that our purpose will be realized! Knowing that, gives us a whole different outlook on our selves and our life here. We tend to take everything a lot more seriously than we did before because we realize we are God's holy ones, His Saints, His chosen people, His priests, and ambassadors of Christ. (1 Peter 2:9; 2 Corinthians 5:20) Everything we do, how we react to everything, including suffering, shows the world a picture of God and what He is like.
!!
