SUFFERING

FATHER, for Your children it’s quite logical to conclude that You must not like me and are punishing me by making me suffer.  Isn’t this a child’s thinking when he is punished and doesn’t understand why he is being punished?  “You are GOD and I’m not so You’re making me suffer for my sins.”  Makes sense.  But it’s not.

“All this trouble is a clear sign that God has decided to make you fit for the kingdom…” (2 Thes 1:5-10 MSG).

“The proof that God has altered our dispositions is not that we persuade ourselves He has, but that we prove He has when circumstances put us to the test” Oswald Chambers (ref#118, p31).

“…the more deeply we realize the truth about this union between us and our Lord, the more we shall know something of the fellowship of His sufferings.  In this world He was ‘a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief’ (Isaiah 53:3).  That was because of the sin of the world.  And because He saw the enmity of the human heart against His Father, it hurt Him, it grieved Him, and He suffered.  There is no more delicate test of our relationship to Him and our union with Him than the extent to which you and I know something of His suffering” Martyn Lloyd Jones (ref#189, Jan 20^th).

Hoards of people practice all of Christianity’s ways because Christianity’s ways can be accomplished without submissions and mimics very well true Christianity.  But, if one’s Christianity is void of perpetual affliction that draws one to their knees, it is faux.

FATHER, You discipline me, which teaches me to depend on You.  True Christians have a need to be forgiven, to be led, to be loved and accepted by You, FATHER. True Christians know their lack—their depravity—their dependency. People that act like Christians are content with their Christianity—they accomplish it on their own and find no need to yell, ‘Help’ to You.

“Though waves and storms go o’er my head,

Though strength, and health, and friends be gone,

Though joys be withered all and dead,

And every comfort be withdrawn,

Steadfast on this my soul relies,

Redeeming mercy never dies”  J. A. Rothe (ref#224).