Thankful for the Suffering
16But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by His name! (1 Peter 4:16, The Life Application Bible)
I hope this message finds you all in good health, eating left-over turkey sandwiches, and perhaps doing a little Christmas shopping this weekend. I wanted to share the verse above with y’all. It was one of the verses we looked at in our Bible Study on Wednesday and we had a very powerful discussion on what Peter meant when he writes to suffer “for being a Christian”.
We began by acknowledging that when Peter initially wrote this letter, the first Christians did indeed suffer. They were martyred, tortured, fed to lions, burned at the stake, crucified, thrown in jail. These brave early Christians endured through the fire, through true suffering to ensure the survival of the faith. They did not abandon their beliefs during these extremely dangerous times because they had lived with Jesus and were telling the world that He was the Messiah. They risked everything to spread the Gospel. Their blood was spilled so we can read the Word of God today. We, as Americans, will never know the depth of suffering these Christians lived for His name. We think that because Christians are becoming the silent majority in many settings, that we are suffering. We only think we are suffering because we have become an over-privileged, entitled, and spoiled society.
One of our Bible-study members brought a funny image to mind when we were deep in this discussion. She posed the question, that if you were standing with the Saints, such as Peter and Paul who truly suffered for Christ, and they asked you how you sacrificed to share the Gospel of Christ: how would these Saints reacted when we tried to explain how “hard” it was to bring up the Good News. How we struggle to talk about Jesus to a group of unbelieving college kids, in casual conversation with friends, or in a smoky pool hall surrounded by sinners. The image I had in my mind was of Peter and Paul looking at each other thinking “that’s it?!” But then our Chaplain helped me come back to reality when he responded “I don’t think they’d ask you that?”
Perhaps those Saints who truly suffered do not expect us to sacrifice to the same extent they did. But perhaps we should strive to suffer for the sake of Christ as much as we can, so if we do meet Peter at the pearly gates, he will be there waiting to give us a fist bump and say, “good job, His good and faithful servant. Your suffering and sacrifice is no more. Eternal love is all that remains.” For the King of Glory, it should be worth it all.
Common Sense Reborn 