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Monday, August 16, 2010
Episode 1 :: Question 7 on Suffering with Christ
6:39 PM | Posted by
St. Burnish
Question 7 – Maria Teresa (Italy/Europe): In studying the Bible, I’ve found those scriptures: Romans 8:17 “If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” and 2nd Timothy 2:12 “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.” Can you please explain this? Shall we suffer as Christians? Is it necessary to suffer before being glorified with Jesus?
Answer 7: Well, the suffering here is not suffering like, you know, you’re in pain or in confusion and so on and so forth. That’s not what it’s talking about. It’s talking about persecution – suffering in persecution or suffering in what we call a sacrificial life, where you choose to go without or where you have to go without because of what you’ve got to do. There are times we do that. For example, I remember years ago, we went to preach in a certain little village, many years ago. And, when we preached there, we didn’t have a nice place to stay. The building that we stayed in had no windows, or rather didn’t have covers for the windows – just large openings. All through that night [it was] cold and we were barely lying on the floor. And, plus that, there wasn’t much good food, but we stayed without. It’s called self-denial because you want to preach the gospel. We stayed with the villagers; we ate what they ate - little but terrible. And yet we enjoyed it because we were doing it for Jesus Christ. It wasn’t an enjoyable place by its own standards, but we enjoyed it because we did it in the name of Jesus. We loved it, and we did. So that’s self-denial.
Sometimes you have to fast – you go without. That’s self-denial. Sometimes you have to stay without even money - self-denial. So, self-denial is something that the Lord allows us to participate in and that’s a part of suffering, but not suffering because you are oppressed with circumstances and you can’t come out. Not suffering because you’re poor – you don’t have to be poor. You may not have, but you are greater than the circumstances. That’s what the Bible teaches us. So, the kind of suffering its dealing with here is the suffering we take as an act of faith and in self-denial or under persecution or when we have to preach the gospel through some kind of hardship, and all that is acceptable with God. Sometimes we are punished by other people, who are in greater positions than we are because of the gospel, and we take it, and all of that is acceptable with God. The Bible says those who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution, and that we’re not only called to believe on him but to suffer for his sake [2 Timothy 3:12]. So that’s important. Alright! I’ll take just one more question today.
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