THE
END GOAL OF SUFFERING
BREAD
2 And
we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not
only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering
produces perseverance; 4 perseverance,
character; and character, hope. 5 And
hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our
hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans
5:2-5 (NIV)
36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of
God, you will receive what he has promised. 37 For
in just a very little while, “He who is coming will come and will not delay. 38 But my righteous one will live by faith.
And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.” Hebrews
10:36-38 (NIV)
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials
of many kinds, 3 because you know
that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that
you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4 (NIV)
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that
can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are
shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be
revealed in the last time. 6 In
this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to
suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These
have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even
though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory
and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 1 Peter 1:3-7 (NIV)
8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil
prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith,
because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the
same kind of sufferings. 10 And the God of all grace,
who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little
while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 11 To him be the power for
ever and ever. Amen. 1 Peter 5:8-11 (NIV)
11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.
Later on, however, it produces a harvest
of righteousness and peace for those who
have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11 (NIV)
17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and
co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may
also share in his glory. 18 I
consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory
that will be revealed in us. Romans 8:17-18 (NIV)
29 For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not
only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, 30 since you are going through the same
struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have. Philippians
1:29-30 (NIV)
11 “Blessed are you when
people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you
because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad,
because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the
prophets who were before you.” Matthew 5:11-12 (NIV)
28 And
we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who
have been called according to his purpose. 29 For
those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his
Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Romans 8:28-29 (NIV)
16 Therefore
we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are
being renewed day by day. 17 For
our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far
outweighs them all. 18 So we fix
our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is
temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NIV)
BUTTER
“Calvary is God’s
great proof that suffering in the will of God always leads to glory.” Warren
Wiersbe
“Seriously,
who wants to be known as ‘Shallow Hal’?
Yet sadly, many who claim faith in Christ fall into the mile wide and an
inch-deep category. This is not of God’s
choosing. He desires for us to grow up
in Christ – to be conformed to the image of his Son – and He often uses our
tribulations to bring this about. That
is His chosen instrument. Sometimes this
is excruciatingly painful – more often than not. Remember as well, in this fallen and broken
world, pain comes to all. There are no
exceptions. But as believers our pain
has purpose. Pain is also relative as
you most likely know. A coffee stain on
a white skirt can be as devastating to some as a bad diagnosis – go figure…If
tribulation, then, is inevitable should we not prayerfully seek the purpose for
it and grow up, look up, or grow nearer, if you will, in Christ? As believers, we are
never more like our Savior as when we walk the path of suffering and
sacrifice. And whether we are discerners
of this or not the more like Christ we are the more satisfied we will be. Remember, too, God’s grace is always
sufficient to meet every need. Every.
Need.” BHY
“All my sufferings
served to promote my spiritual and eternal good. Glory be to thee, O Lord.” Susannah
Wesley
“The burden of suffering seems a tombstone hung about our necks, while
in reality, it is only the weight which is necessary to keep down the diver
while he is hunting for pearls.”
Richter
“God
shapes our character through suffering giving us a greater understanding of Who
He is and who we are.”
BHY
“Each adopted
child of the Lord is going to receive the full inheritance. Everything that Jesus Christ received by
divine right, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are going to receive by divine
grace.....Whatever problem you are facing today that is making you groan, He is turning your groaning into glory. All the pain and all the hurt and all the
suffering and all the agony, all the disappointment and all the dashed hopes
and shattered dreams, all the insults and all the rejection, are all nothing
when it comes to the Father’s glory that you will one day inherit. You can’t even begin to compare them. Test and rejoice in the Truth that the Spirit
of God is giving you the ultimate victory, He is guaranteeing and sealing your
adoption, and He is turning your groaning into glory.” Michael Youssef
“Suffering is the crucible the Divine
Blacksmith uses to form us into the image of Christ. Apart from God’s grace suffering is
deformative. For the believer, our
suffering is accomplishing something. Suffering
well takes practice. We must learn to
pray our pain, sing our sorrows and lean into the comfort of community. God uses our suffering for the greater good
of others. We suffer to share the One
that suffered to save.” Jonathan
Darville
“My hope is not in a cure
today. My hope is not the absence of suffering and comfort returned. My hope is
in the presence of the One who promises never to leave or forsake, the One who
declares nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God.” (Romans
8:39). Nothing. Your story is a good story. In the grief, pain and hard, the
Author has a plan. It may feel like a desperate breaking of your very heart,
but suffering is not the absence of God or good.” Kara
Tippetts
“Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger…these are nothing when
compared with the glory that will be revealed in, and for us.” David
Livingstone
“The strangest truth of the gospel is that redemption comes
through suffering.” Milo Chapman
“Tribulation
is necessary for the decentralization of self and the development of deep
dimensions of agape love, this love can be developed only in the school of
suffering. It grows and develops only by
exercise and testing. This may explain
the relationship between sainthood and suffering by showing why there is no
sainthood without suffering. It may also
show why the greatest saints are often the greatest suffers.” Paul E. Billheimer
“Suffering isn’t a mistake and isn’t the absence of
God’s goodness — because He’s
present in
pain.” Kara Tippetts
“When God doesn’t prevent
suffering, He gives us perspective on suffering. Sometimes you just
have to get a ‘God’s-eye’ view to see that the master potter is scooping up all
the rubble and ruin from your low place to mold and create good in your life.
His love reaches down into the dirt – what you may think is utter defeat or
hopeless – and lifts you to see that He can turn what you may view as worthless
into something worthwhile. God can take
what we think is worthless and turn it into something worthwhile. Often,
when we’re down, all we can see is the valley, the wasteland – we feel like our
lives are a mess. But our loving God does not see us and our low places that
way. The stuff you think may be just too messy, too ugly, too far gone is the
stuff God is infusing with purpose. The
sorrow that hurts you? God fashions it into faith that sustains you. The sin you’re ashamed of? God uses it to create beautiful humility. The
failures you regret? God turns them into wisdom. The grief that shattered your heart? God
crafts that into unshakeable faith. The
missed opportunities? God uses those to make you reflect His grace. The loss you never expected? God molds that
into strength you can’t explain. God can
make your low place a stepping stone to climb higher with Him. He can take even the worst things in
your life – the injustice, defeat, abandonment or failure – to create the best
for you, His beloved child.” Jennifer Rothschild
“Steel
is iron plus fire. Soil is rock, plus
heat, or glacier crushing. Linen is flax
plus the bath that cleans, the comb that separates, and the flail that pounds,
and the shuttle that weaves. Human
character must have a plus attached to it.
The world does not forget great character. But great characters are not made of
luxuries, they are made by suffering….Someday, God is going to reveal the fact
to every Christian, that the very principles they now rebel against, have been
the instruments which He used in perfecting their characters and molding them
into perfection, polished stones for His great building yonder.” Cortland Myers
“You
exist because God wanted you to exist and you are who
you are, what you are, how you are, where you are, and when you are because God made
you (John 1:3), wove you in your mother’s womb (Psalms 139:13), called you to
be his own (John 10:27); (Romans 8:30), and assigned you a life to live (1
Corinthians 7:17). And this infuses your entire life — its good and evil, its
sweet and bitter, it’s health and affliction, its prosperity and poverty, its comfort
and suffering — with an unfathomable dignity, purpose, and glory.” Jon Bloom
HEART SAVOR
- · Troubles are a given in this fallen world – so is God’s grace sufficient to meet each need of His children.
- · Tribulations have purpose for the child of the King.
- · God is in the business of conforming us into the image of His sons and He more often than not uses our trials to accomplish this end.
