We might as well get used to it: as long as we are here, in this world, we are going to suffer. As fallen creatures, it is our fate. Nothing in the Bible promises us anything different. On the contrary …
What do the following verses have to tell us about the topic at hand? Acts 14:22, Philippians 1:29, 2 Timothy 3:12.
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Yet, in the midst of our suffering, two things we should keep in mind.
First, Christ, our Lord, has suffered worse than any of us ever could. At the cross, He “has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4, NKJV); what we know only as individuals, He suffered corporately, for us all. He who was sinless became “sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21), suffering in a way that we, as sinful creatures, couldn’t begin to imagine.
But second, as we suffer, we should remember the results of Christ’s suffering, that is, what we have been promised through what Christ has done for us.
Read John 10:28, Romans 6:23, Titus 1:2, and 1 John 2:25. What are we promised?
Whatever our sufferings here, thanks to Jesus, thanks to His bearing in Himself the punishment of our sin, thanks to the great provision of the gospel — that through faith we can stand perfect in Jesus right now — we have the promise of eternal life. We have the promise that because of what Christ has done, because of the fullness and completeness of His perfect life and perfect sacrifice, our existence here, full of pain, disappointment, and loss, is no more than an instant, a flash, here and gone, in contrast to the eternity that awaits us, an eternity in a new heaven and a new earth, one without sin, suffering, and death. And all this is promised to us and made certain for us only because of Christ and the crucible He went into so that one day, coming soon, He would see “the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:11).
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