Unjust Suffering 1 Peter 2:19-21 1 Peter 4:3-5 1 Peter 4:12-18 1 Peter 2:11-12 Proverbs 19:11 Proverbs 12:16 Proverbs 10:12 Romans 12:17-21 02.25.19

UNJUST SUFFERING

BREAD

¹⁹ For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. ²⁰ But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. ²¹ To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.  1 Peter 2:19-21 (NIV)

³ For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do--living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. ⁴ They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. ⁵ But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 1 Peter 4:3-5 (NIV)

¹² Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. ¹³ But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. ¹⁴ If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. ¹⁵ If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. ¹⁶ However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. ¹⁷ For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? ¹⁸ And, “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”  1 Peter 4:12-18 (NIV)

¹¹ Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. ¹² Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.  1 Peter 2:11-12 (NIV)

¹¹ A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.  Proverbs 19:11 (NIV)

¹⁶ A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.  Proverbs 12:16 (NIV)

¹² Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs. Proverbs 10:12 (NIV)

¹⁷ Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.
¹⁸ If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. ¹⁹ Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. ²⁰ On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.   Romans 12:17-21 (NIV)

BUTTER

“When we are unjustly wounded by men, let us overlook their wickedness (which would but worsen our pain and sharpen our minds to revenge), remember to mount up to God, and learn to believe for certain that whatever our enemy has wickedly committed against us was permitted and sent by God’s just dispensation.”  Calvin

“Whether the offenses against us are titanic or trifling, God’s judgment frees us to exchange bitterness for patience, retribution for mercy. The very word judgment brings to mind our own offenses against God, offenses that cried out for our blood until Jesus shed his own. It reminds us that our offender, if outside of Christ, deserves our pity and, if inside Christ, needs our brotherly love. It removes all self-righteousness from our mouths and replaces it with the Christlike plea of ‘Lord, forgive them.’ It beckons us to release our ‘right’ to get even, and to hand over our cause to him who judges justly.”  Scott Hubbard

“Assurance grows by repeated conflict…When we have been brought very low and helped, sorely wounded and healed, cast down and raised again…and when these things have been repeated to us and in us a thousand times over, we begin to learn to trust simply to the word and power of God.”   John Newton

“Every step on the pathway of spiritual progress will be marked by the bloody footprints of wounded self-love.  All along the course of spiritual advancement, one will have to set up altars upon which even the legitimate self-life will have to be sacrificed.”   Alexander Maclaren     

“Leave it all in the hands that were wounded for you.”  Elisabeth Elliot

“I don’t know how, but somehow? –maybe our hearts are made to be broken. Broken open. Broken free. Maybe the deepest wounds birth deepest wisdom. We are made in the image of God. And wasn’t God’s heart made to be broken too? Wounds can be openings to the beauty in us. And our weaknesses can be a container for God’s glory.  Hannah tasted salty tears of infertility. Elijah howled for God to take his life. David asked his soul a thousand times why it was so downcast.  The thing is? God does great things through the greatly wounded. God sees the broken as the best and He sees the best in the broken and He calls the wounded to be the world changers.  Never ever be afraid of being a broken thing. And maybe—this is the way to freedom? You’ve got to remember to just keep breathing —keep believing. Brokenness can make.”   Ann Voskamp

“To be human is to be a fallen image bearer who can only be rescued by a Wounded Healer.”  Ronnie Collier Stevens

“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

“When suffering floods us — the question that often rises is WHY?  Why would a loving God allow this crisis, this grief, this heartbreak, this suffering?  Why does suffering happen in a world held by a Wounded God?  And when suffering surrounds, the Wounded God with the nail scars, He does not ask us to deny it, or turn a blind eye to it, or beautify it. He ask us to hold space for it, to collect it, to gather it, like the questioning mystery of manna, and cup it in hand and believe that something in the suffering offers sustenance for the soul. In every hard thing that happens — God is happening to work a million things for good.  The Wounded God does not say, ‘Do not fear, I will give you all the answers.’  He does not say, ‘Do not fear, I will take away all your pain.’  He does not say, ‘Do not fear, I will do whatever you all think.’  The Wounded God who is the one High, Almighty Wise God, who says it like a wide-open embrace:  ‘Do not fear — for I am here.’  What if instead of wanting good things for us — we wanted a good God with us?  The problem of evil is answered by the presence of Emmanuel: God is with us.  There are always arms under you carrying you, there are always hands carved with your name holding yours, there is always a waiting embrace Who is your safe place. You will never be abandoned — because He will never abandon you, Love will never abandon you, Hope will never abandon you, Grace will never abandon you.  With-ness breaks brokenness and He who is with you is larger than any suffering around you.” Ann Voskamp

“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  

“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 

“Did you ever stop and think about the fact that God has put you where you are for such a time as this? It is providence. If you have suffered in life, God can take your hurt and pain and use it to make you a godly man or woman for such a time as this….There is only one you. There is one person walking this earth with your exact heritage. The precise events and sufferings of your life have brought you to this hour. God is aware of it. He has been preparing, equipping, and allowing what has been happening in your life to get you ready. He has something for you to say. He has something for you to do.”   Greg Laurie

“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

“What if suffering didn’t leave us questioning God — but left us seeing that God is always the answer?”   Ann Voskamp

HEART SAVOR

·         Unjust suffering will come. The question is what will you do with it?

·         The Wounded Healer uses our pain to conform us into His image – and there is no better image nor is this a small act of love on His part.  He knows what is best for us even though it is painful.  Just look at the cross if you want to see the ultimate highest form of unjust suffering, just take a long look at the cross.

·         Whining and complaining are not spiritual fruits nor are they attractive for the child of the King.