The Seminary of Suffering

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

This is God’s universal purpose for all Christian suffering: more contentment in God and less reliance on self and the world. I have never heard anyone say, “The really deep lessons of life have come through times of ease and comfort.”

But I have heard strong saints say, “Every significant advance I have ever made in grasping the depths of God’s love and growing deep with him has come through suffering.”

The pearl of greatest price is the glory of Christ.

Thus, Paul stresses that in our sufferings the glory of Christ’s all-sufficient grace is magnified. If we rely on him in our calamity, and he sustains our “rejoicing in hope,” then he is shown to be the all-satisfying God of grace and strength that he is.

If we hold fast to him, “when all around our soul gives way,” then we show that he is more to be desired than all we have lost.

Christ said to the suffering apostle, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul responded to this: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10).

So suffering clearly is designed by God not only as a way to wean Christians off of self and onto grace, but also as a way to spotlight that grace and make it shine. That is precisely what faith does: it magnifies Christ’s future grace.

The deep things of life in God are discovered and magnified in suffering.

John Piper 

Bible Study

Isaiah 43:2-3

    [2] When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

        and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

    when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

        and the flame shall not consume you. 

    [3] For I am the LORD your God,

        the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

    I give Egypt as your ransom,

        Cush and Seba in exchange for you.

Isaiah 40:29-31

    [29] He gives power to the faint,

        and to him who has no might he increases strength. 

    [30] Even youths shall faint and be weary,

        and young men shall fall exhausted; 

    [31] but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;

        they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

    they shall run and not be weary;

        they shall walk and not faint.

1 Corinthians 2:5

[5] so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Philippians 4:13

[13] I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Are Any Rooms in Your Heart Off-Limits to God?

PRAY OVER THIS

“Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.” Ephesians 5:17-21

 

PONDER THIS

Be filled with the Spirit. There’s no place for the devil when you’re filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not some sort of a liquid with you as the jug, that’s not the idea. To be filled with the Spirit of God means there’s not one room in your life where God is off-limits. There’s not one closet He doesn’t have a key to. You are filled with the Spirit in your sex life, in your business life, in your political life, in your church life, in your social life, in the big things and the little things, in your money, in your exercise, in your sleep, in your eating, in your lying down, in your waking up. This is the heart we need to have: “Jesus, I give you the keys to it all; I am filled with Your Spirit.” When you’re filled with the Holy Spirit there’s no more room for Satan.

If there’s room for Satan, the Spirit is grieved, and you are not filled with the Spirit. Don’t try to repent until you’re honest and face your sin, don’t try to resist until you’ve repented, and don’t try to be filled until you resist Satan and yield to God’s blessed Holy Spirit.

What areas of life have you submitted to God’s authority?

In what areas of life have you struggled to give God authority? What needs to change?

PRACTICE THIS

Pray and surrender to God the areas of life over which you have not given Him full control.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Danger of Drifting

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. (Hebrews 2:1)

We all know people that this has happened to. There is no urgency. No vigilance. No focused listening or considering or fixing of their eyes on Jesus. And the result has not been a standing still, but a drifting away.

That is the point here: there is no standing still. The life of this world is not a lake. It is a river. And it is flowing downward to destruction. If you do not listen earnestly to Jesus and consider him daily and fix your eyes on him hourly, then you will not stand still; you will go backward. You will float away from Christ.

Drifting is a deadly thing in the Christian life. And the remedy for it, according to Hebrews 2:1, is: Pay close attention to what you have heard. That is, consider what God is saying in his Son Jesus. Fix your eyes on what God is saying and doing in the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

This is not a hard swimming stroke to learn. The only thing that keeps us from swimming against sinful culture is not the difficulty of the stroke, but our sinful desire to go with the flow.

Let’s not complain that God has given us a hard job. Listen, consider, fix the eyes — this is not what you would call a hard job description. In fact, it is not a job description. It is a solemn invitation to be satisfied in Jesus so that we do not get lured downstream by deceitful desires.

If you are drifting today, one of the signs of hope that you are born again is that you feel pricked for this, and you feel a rising desire to turn your eyes on Jesus and consider him and listen to him in the days and months and years to come.

John Piper 

Bible Study

Hebrews 2:2-4

[2] For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, [3] how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, [4] while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

Hebrews 10:35

[35] Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

Hebrews 10:28-30

[28] Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. [29] How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? [30] For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”

Deuteronomy 27:26

[26] “‘Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

Are You Holding on to Anger?

PRAY OVER THIS

“Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”

Ephesians 4:29-32

 

PONDER THIS

If you have anger in your heart, if love is not there, that doesn't mean the Holy Spirit of God forsakes you. If you are in Christ, He cannot and He will not leave you. You are sealed by the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption. What grieves the Holy Spirit? These things: bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil. Bitterness is an unresolved hurt. Somebody's hurt you and done you wrong. It may be real, it may be imaginary, but you perceive that somebody has done you wrong. Bitterness turns to wrath. The word wrath has the idea of heat, something burning, sort of a slow burn. The best illustration I can give is to think of some oily rags in an attic or a closet, smoldering with the heat building up.

What's the difference between wrath and anger? Wrath is that slow burn, but anger is when somebody opens the door, and the oxygen hits those rags and they burst into flame. You say, “Well, I lost my temper.” You probably found it. You know when a person says, “I lost my temper,” what they're saying is, “It's not really my fault, it's not really me, I lost it.” No, what is happening, is that you're showing what's in your heart. In those moments, the Holy Spirit has not forsaken you, you have Him in you to equip you and help in those moments you feel prone to bitterness, wrath, and anger.

When was the last time you lost your temper?

What would it look like to seek God when you feel prone to bitterness, wrath, and anger?

PRACTICE THIS

Write out a verse to memorize and reflect on the next time you feel prone to sinful anger.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Sin, Satan, Sickness, or Sabotage

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:8–9)

Is the suffering that comes to the Christian because of persecution the same as the suffering that comes from cancer? Do the promises given to one apply to the other? My answer is yes. All of life, if it is lived earnestly by faith in the pursuit of God’s glory and the salvation of others, will meet with some kind of obstacle and suffering. The suffering that comes to the obedient Christian is part of the price of living where you are in obedience to the call of God.

In choosing to follow Christ in the way he directs, we choose all that this path includes under his sovereign providence. Thus, all suffering that comes in the path of obedience is suffering with Christ and for Christ — whether it is cancer at home or persecution far away.

And it is “chosen” — that is, we willingly take the path of obedience where the suffering befalls us, and we do not murmur against God. We may pray — as Paul did — that the suffering be removed (2 Corinthians 12:8); but if God wills, we embrace it as part of the cost of discipleship in the path of obedience on the way to heaven.

All experiences of suffering in the path of Christian obedience, whether from persecution or sickness or accident, have this in common: They all threaten our faith in the goodness of God, and tempt us to leave the path of obedience.

Therefore, every triumph of faith, and all perseverance in obedience, are testimonies to the goodness of God and the preciousness of Christ — whether the enemy is sickness, Satan, sin, or sabotage. Therefore, all suffering, of every kind, that we endure in the path of our Christian calling is a suffering “with Christ” and “for Christ.”

With him in the sense that the suffering comes to us as we are walking with him by faith, and in the sense that it is endured in the strength he supplies through his sympathizing high-priestly ministry to us (Hebrews 4:15).

And for him in the sense that the suffering tests and proves our allegiance to his goodness and power, and in the sense that it reveals his worth as an all-sufficient compensation and prize.

John Piper