The Joy of Christian Suffering
God's Refining Fire
1 Peter 4:12-13
Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; 13 but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.
All true Christians will suffer and endure trials of all kinds. This verse from Peter tells us we are to rejoice when we suffer due to our faith in Christ (partaking in Christ sufferings). Far too often believers are not grounded on the whole truth about our walk with God and when these trials come, can be readily deceived and knocked off the narrow road that leads to life. I write this as one being attacked, tested, burdened, frustrated and stressed from many carnal perspectives. I am human and at times for the moment, these things have gotten to me but the Spirit within me points out the truth and I catch myself and alter course to stay on the path. I have a point of understanding that nothing will steal my peace. While worldly things are being taken away, I trust in the fact that God owns it all anyway and He is in total control. I pray Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done On Earth As It Is In Heaven.
Many of the brethren in Christ are enduring similar trials both economically, physically and spiritually. I share the wisdom God has imparted to me, imperfectly of course and hope it will edify you to a truth about God and His will.
1 Thess 4:3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified
We all must be sanctified by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is God’s will and He has done an amazing work to put in place a plan to bring us to that place of glory. Sanctification comes about through us overcoming the trials or said another way, the tests of life. Jesus told us to fear not as He has overcome the world. That is our call as well and we do it through the power of the Holy Spirit. We must both overcome these trials and we must endure to the very end to be saved.
Satan is out to deceive God’s people into thinking salvation is a cake walk and that a relationship with Christ is easy. It is not easy as Jesus himself told us the road was difficult and that we must strive to enter the narrow gate. We do this of course ONLY thru the power (grace) of God that is IN us if we are of true faith and led by the Spirit of God.
Matthew 7:14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it
Throughout the Scriptures, both Old and New Testament’s, the suffering we must endure to be counted worthy of God and be sanctified by the Holy Spirit are consistently repeated. The Prophets often spoke of coming thru the fire, be refined like gold or silver. Jesus called these trials the cost of discipleship. The Apostles spoke consistently on the expectation and requirement to suffer if we are true Christians. I will show some examples of each type of reference.
Malachi 3:2 Refiner’s Fire
But who can endure the day of His coming?
And who can stand when He appears?
For He is like a refiner’s fire
And like launderers’ soap.
3 He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver;
He will purify the sons of Levi,
And purge them as gold and silver,
That they may offer to the LORD
An offering in righteousness.
Being refined is being sanctified. It is how we are cleansed of all impurity and learn to walk in holiness before God. Look at the words used, we are washed by His word (the soap) and refined by His Spirit (the fire). This is what being Born Again is all about if you go back and read John 3 with open eyes. Elsewhere Jesus tells us about the cost of following Him or the cost of discipleship. You see contrary to what is being taught, salvation is not easy, we must pay a price, suffer and come through the fire.
Luke 14:28-31 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it— 29 lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’? 31 Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?
Many pages could be filled with commentary on our call for suffering and persecution as Christians. I offer just a few of them below. The good news is that our suffering for Christ and the trials God sends upon us to purify us, are only for a SHORT PERIOD of time. If we consider that our lives like James told us are but a mist that quickly vanishes, compared to eternal life, suffering in this way is a very good investment we should choose.
1 Peter 5:8-10 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. 10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, AFTER you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
Once we come through the period of suffering and have put to death our flesh, then Jesus carries our burdens. The yoke of the Lord is easy and His burden is light as He indeed is the one carrying it once we are established. Note however that we are not perfected, settled, strengthened etc, until after we suffer. God indeed tests our hearts as will be discussed below. God only lets us be tempted and tested to that which we can bear. This is true faith in that when the chips are down and we are enduring hardship that we do not resort to the ways of the world or use carnal thinking. Trust in the Lord forever, for He alone is the rock eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:7-12 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. 8 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11 For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So then death is working in us, but life in you.
If we walk with Jesus we will always be under attack in some way. It is when we trust fully in God that we can endure trials and retain our peace. The suffering is how we die to self — similar to the metaphor of the kernel of wheat that must fall to the ground and die to create new life. The fire of God (the Holy Spirit) in us burns up the impurities, the idols and anything that stands in the way of loving God with our whole heart. As I recently wrote about, we must put on a divine nature and serve one Master, otherwise we fail God’s test and prove ourselves unworthy to be His son. Paul encourages us in his many writings and this must be our hope as we endure the sufferings we must come through.
2 Corinthians 4: 16-18 Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
God Will Test All Faith
Hebrews 12:11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
All of us must be tested and come thru the discipline of God. That is how we are purified and made ready as a Bride. Just saying some words about Jesus does not prepare us or pass the test of God. We must suffer and this suffering may not seem pleasant yet if we keep our eyes focused on the prize of eternal life, we will understand what is happening and when we yield our lives to God, we will find the peace that transcends all understanding.
God has written His laws in our hearts and in our minds. Jesus said that if we truly love Him, we will obey His commandments. We prove ourselves and our faith as genuine by responding to the discipline of God. That is how we endure and in turn are trained so we can teach others. Keep in mind that God is in total control, even using the enemy to accomplish His perfect will. The Lord uses events, people and even the enemy to implement the test of our faith. We know that all things work for the greater good for those that love the Lord.
1 Peter 1:6-7 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ
Any word search of the bible will bring up hundreds of references to God testing us and our hearts. I quickly picked a few out just to remove all doubt of this immutable truth about God.
1 Chronicles 29:17 I know also, my God, that You test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness
Psalm 26:2 Test me, O LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind
Ecclesiastes 3:18 As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. I thought this verse was interesting in that it really shows one of the reasons why God tests us. He wants to bring us to repentance and by testing us, we are shown how sinful and wicked we really are if we are not walking with Him in a pure heart.
Jeremiah 11:20 But, O LORD Almighty, you who judge righteously and test the heart and mind
Zechariah 13:9 This third I will bring into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold.
1 Thess 2:4 On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts
Even Jesus, God Almighty Himself, manifest in the flesh, was tested. The entire episode in the desert and the three temptations recorded in Luke Chapter 4 was the testing of Jesus’ heart. Jesus did not walk this earth with His Godly power, He drained Himself as the Scriptures tell us and everything He did on earth was by walking in full faith and looking to God to direct His paths. We are to walk as Jesus walked, He was our example.
As I recently wrote about, the Book of Job is an entire expose on how the devil operates with God’s permission and how God uses them to test our hearts. Remember this however, we are never to test God, but know that He indeed tests us and that is how we are purified/sanctified to be Holy and pleasing in His sight. We are told to examine ourselves to make sure we pass God’s test.
Most teachers speak falsely about the tests of God. They do not teach the fear of God and tickle the flesh with nice pleasant words of comfort and carnal love, but they are without understanding of God’s test and discipline. These words are a false security my friends. Consider a few things Jeremiah wrote in Lamentations. God is sovereign, He created everything including the devil and He uses the devil to accomplish His purposes. I have a page link at the top of this page entitled Devil that provides a good primer on this topic.
Lamentations 3:37-40
Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass,
Unless the Lord has commanded it?
38Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That both good and ill go forth?
39Why should any living mortal, or any man,
Offer complaint in view of his sins?
40Let us examine and probe our ways,
And let us return to the LORD
God uses evil to test us and to bring us back to Him by repentance from our sins. We need to quit blaming the devil and first examine ourselves and our hearts if we are not at peace with God. I do not have time here to go into this but I encourage you to read the relatively short book of Lamentations and take heed to what Jeremiah says about the sufferings and anguish of Judah. The Lord was in the middle of it and God used the powers of darkness to bring it about all the while false teachers were tickling the ears of willful persistent sinners that did not love God.
I continue to be washed and edified by the word of God. I think back when I blamed everything on the devil when I should have been looking into my own heart to see the idols and impurities that stood in the way of a walk of holiness before the Lord. I thought I could have it both ways, seek pleasure for myself and serve God. I was deceived and my continued sin without change was a sure-fire sign my sanctification was stalled out at best or non-existent at worse.
True lambs do not fight back with their flesh. They depend on their Shepherd (Jesus) for protection and safety. That is what we, the sons of God must do. We must be led by the Spirit of God. We must respond to God’s tests. We must resist evil and we must accept the discipline of the Lord and take the sufferings that come as an opportunity to grow in maturity and faith. This is how we die to self and walk in true faith.
As the world continues its free fall into lawlessness and sin, the judgment of God approaches rapidly. The love of many is growing cold and many Christians are abandoning the path of righteousness to save themselves rather than trusting in God. We cannot save ourselves and by trusting in our flesh, we show our faith to be weak or false. The Scriptures are full of stories and lessons about people who God rescued that later when trials came upon, tried to save themselves. They were destroyed instead as we must endure to the end to be saved, it is not enough to answer the initial call of God. Think of all the Jews that were destroyed in the desert after being rescued from Egypt and that never were able to possess the land. This is a direct lesson for eternity but there are many more in all the Books of the Prophets.
We learn obedience by walking as Jesus walked. We must grin and bear it so to speak and not resort to a carnal or fleshly response to the trials.
Hebrews 5:8 though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered
This does not mean we are to take no action, but we must be in communion with God and hear His voice and do what He leads us to do. Any voice that tells us to do something against God’s law or that is inconsistent with loving your neighbor as yourself you can be certain is not a voice from God.
When trials come upon us, we need to be aware of God’s plan and respond in faith. We are told to count it all as joy because we look forward to what is yet to come and know that our faithful endurance of suffering will result in us gaining the crown of eternal life very soon.
James 1:2-4 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
If we do not endure the trials and discipline of God, we show ourselves to be tares, fake believers and unworthy to be a son of God.
Hebrews 5:7-8 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Those that teach salvation is a cake walk are false teachers, they are leading sleep to the slaughter as a quick read of Jeremiah 23 or Ezekiel 34 will make perfectly clear.
We all have likely heard the metaphor that God is the potter and we are the clay from Romans 9. To be completed,a piece of clay pottery needs to come thru the fire. If a pottery is not refined in the fire, it will crumble and will not be worthy as a piece of pottery. That is how our adoption into heaven works as well my friends. Our sanctification, which means purification requires all our impurities (sin) to be burnt up. We do not do this on our own power or our own initiatives, it is indeed by the power of God. Without sanctification none of us will see the Lord.
Hebrews 12:14 Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord
Be encouraged and not discouraged. As we suffer more and more in these end times fear not anything except for God. Abraham was tested by being told to kill his own son. While we all endure different tests and trials, do not let loss of money, possessions or anything of this world steal your peace and rob you of the eternal inheritance God has in store for all of us that overcome and endure to the end.
Revelation 2:10 Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
