SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/12/2017
8:42 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The
Suffering of the Ministry”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Colossians
1:24a
Message of the
verses: “In my sufferings for your
sake and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body (which is the church)
in filling up that which is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.”
Now we have been discussing the aspect of joy in our past
SD’s and we can see here that Paul wants to emphasize that his circumstances
are independent of his joy as he writes “in my sufferings for your sake.” Remember that Paul was in prison for
proclaiming the gospel when he penned this letter, as he was suffering for the
cause of Christ. Even while in prison
Paul could rejoice while in there because he always viewed himself as a
prisoner of Jesus Christ, and not a prisoner of the Roman government, as we can
see from another letter he wrote, “1 ¶
Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon
our beloved brother and fellow worker, 9
yet for love’s sake I rather appeal to you-since I am such a person as
Paul, the aged, and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus- 23 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus,
greets you, (Philem. 1:1, 9, 23).”
We can see from the fifth chapter of the book of Acts that
the early believers considered it a privilege to suffer for the cause of Jesus
Christ as we read in Acts 5:41 “So they went on their way from the presence of
the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for
His name.” Paul writes the following to
the Philippians in 1:29 “29 For to you
it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to
suffer for His sake.”
We can see that suffering brings believers closer to
Jesus Christ “that I may
know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His
sufferings, being conformed to His death (Phil. 3:10).” When believers suffer for the cause of Jesus
Christ they get a better understanding of what Christ went through in dying for
their sins as He suffered on the cross paying for the sins of the world.
Now we will look at one more reason for believer’s
sufferings and then save some for our next SD as it is Sunday and I usually
write shorter SD’s on Sunday.
Second reason is that suffering assures that believers
belong to Christ, and when you think about this you have to agree that if a
person did not belong to Jesus Christ then he would not suffer for Him. Jesus said in John 15:18 “"If the world
hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.” Matthew 10:24 says “"A disciple is not
above his teacher, nor a slave above his master.” If Jesus suffers then His followers will also
suffer to because they belong to Him and He is in heaven and cannot be gotten
to so the next best things are to get at His disciples. When Jesus was talking to Saul of Tarsus who
was persecuting the followers of Jesus Christ He asked him why he was
persecuting “Me.”
Paul writes in his very last letter which was to Timothy
in 2 Tim. 3:12 “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be
persecuted.” Peter tells the suffering
believers he was writing to “If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are
blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you (1 Pet. 4:14).” MacArthur adds “Suffering causes believers to
sense the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives, which gives assurance of
salvation.”
2/12/2017 9:02 PM
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