Thankfulness For Suffering

Uplook – November 2022 — Grace & Truth Magazine

Thankfulness For Suffering

Suffering As A Gift
Because to you has been given, as regards Christ, not only the believing on Him but the suffering for Him also. —Philippians 1:29 JND

Two gifts are mentioned here: faith and suffering. We have no problem in believing that faith is a gift of God, but how many of us believe this about suffering? Affliction is not only the last thing to be considered useful, but it is also usually something to be avoided and shunned.

According to the Word of God, suffering is not an accident but a gift to be cherished. When properly received down here, it leads to higher rank in the ages to come.

Suffering plus triumphant acceptance equals heavenly character. All affliction is intended to drive us to God. It is meant to work a fuller submission, a more utter devotion, greater dimensions of agape love, increasing patience, and a higher beauty of the spirit. When it accomplishes this, then it may be classified as suffering with Christ, because it has enabled Him to achieve His end and purpose in us.

Suffering, triumphantly accepted, delivers one from self-centeredness, weans one from self-love and self-worship, and frees one to love. There is not only death to sin, but there is a deeper death to self. In distinction to heart cleansing, which is by faith, this deeper death to self is by suffering. It is gradual and extends throughout life (3:7-11).

There is only one place and time in which heavenly character is built, and that is in the here and now – in a fallen world just like this one (vv.12-21).

Suffering As Seen In Him
For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make perfect the leader of their salvation through sufferings. —Hebrews 2:10

This passage sets forth one of the most amazing passages on the purpose of suffering in the economy, or administration, of God. In the case of Christ, His perfecting was not the perfecting of moral character but the completion of His equipment, if we may say it that way, for His work as Leader and Originator of our salvation. His suffering only matured and perfected His human experience. If Jesus’ human experience in leadership could not be perfected without suffering, could our training for heavenly rulership be perfected without it?

The proper reaction for us in the school of suffering is humble acceptance and brokenness, which produces for us “an eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). By patient and triumphant submission, suffering is transmuted – changed especially to something better – into character, which leaves an indelible mark on our spiritual lives and those of others. If one understands that grace can overrule his sorrow and use it to teach him agape love, he can use his anguish and pain for everlasting gain.

By Maurice Bassali

Dear Lord, I thankfully kiss the hand That gently stripped me bare, And laid me on Thy tender breast, To lose my sorrow there. ’Twas anguish when earth’s cup was spilled,
But now with Thee ’tis overfilled, For, Jesus, Thou are more to me Than all earth’s brimming cups could be. —Anonymous