Eligibility Unease
Theme of the Week: Don't Waste Your Suffering
Friday, August 8, 2008
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse: But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering (Romans 8:17). Bonus Reading: Mark 10:28-30
A friend talked to me about an unusual worry simmering on the back burners of his conscience. Life was treating him well. He had a lovely wife and a good marriage. He was strong as a healthy ox. All his children were beautiful, talented, and doing well. He'd won star status in his field of work.
So what was he worried about? That something might be wrong if everything was this good.
As a Christian, he knew that Jesus led his followers to expect things to go wrong sometimes as a consequence of their commitment. But he hadn't suffered, not much anyway. Where did that leave him? Was there a soft spot in the underbelly of his Christian commitment?
About the same time, I was jolted by what must be the Bible's toughest word on suffering: [the Key Bible Verse]. It is the small print in a footnote of the gospel: Only sufferers need apply. There is no heaven for us unless we suffer with him on earth.
Maybe my friend does well to worry.
—Lewis Smedes in Days of Grace Through the Year
My Response: What should I be learning from the suffering of Christians in other parts of our world?
Thought to Apply: Why do Christians today get off so easily? Is it because unchristian Americans are that much better than unchristian Romans, or is our light so dim that the tormentor can't see it? What are the things we do that are worth persecuting? —Clarence Jordan
Adapted from Days of Grace Through the Year (InterVarsity, 2007) by permission.
Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Help me not to resist the trials You send my way, Lord, but submit to Your refining touch.
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