Sharing in His Sufferings

Then Jesus told his disciples, 
“If anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Matthew 16:24

This may be brief, depending on various factors. 

The Lord has led me to reflect upon His keeping in the midst of turmoil, again recently. Even as He is keeping me now, in the midst of turmoil.

Since having come to know Christ, there has been a solidarity with Him that prevails in the midst of being pressed on all sides. And even so, He has been leading me in how to articulate what has been the case. At times, I dare not speak of the circumstances at hand, for fear of being tempted to falter in trusting the Lord and due to a sense of holy reverence for the severity of what is underway. 

Surely each of us experience such things, and perhaps just don't reach a point of yearning to be able to reflect openly upon them--understanding is not as desired, perhaps. 

There seems a recurrent theme: deliverance into Christ's new life, revelation of His love being central in driving a burning desire to know more of Him and share of Him, being pressed in on all sides by torment and unexpected opposition (which desires to crush into its own shape, eradicating the Lord's presence), a giving over to God in absolute need for sustenance (being wholly overrought), and a blessed deliverance into a greater nearness to Him and experiential knowledge of Him (humbled to deeper repentance and greater faith, having seen and known His faithfulness and His work first-hand, once again).

Again and again, in the midst of that furnace, there is ever the submission to the reality that even if God should ordain that I be crushed or consumed by that fire, then it is not because He is unable: He is still God and sovereignly so, and He is worthy of my abject worship and rightful submission to His will (even if His will is to publicly slay me--He is good and He will get glory, even through such a matter if that were His will).

That is the thing, again and again--do we trust Him? Do we know Him, as to trust Him? 

Having secondhand stories of someone is one thing. God has told us, rather, to come to Him. We are to approach Him. Even as this is based upon the Word--the Bible--which He has given and preserved through the ages that we may know Him and have life, eternal. 

His wisdom is inscrutable, however. So, when there are fiery trials we are not to be surprised. But neither should we necessarily expect to fully comprehend, beyond what Scripture has revealed. He has told us what we need to know. What He has not told us, explicitly (or due to lacking explicit revelation sufficient to inferential determination)...we do not necessarily need to know. 

We need to know Him, and in His sufferings. So we suffer with Him. 

There are times to do so silently. But I'm finding now, too, that there are times where a modicum of discussion amongst saints (and in rare instance, amongst the unsaved--as unto the Gospel)...is a matter rife for edification and encouragement and discipleship. 

How much do we idolize comfort in our world? This...has been a central matter, of late. Should we expect and press toward comfort and ease against all odds? Based on what I read in Scripture, there's not any justification for expecting easy relations with the world, nor for believing ourselves entitled to a particular type of treatment or environment amongst unbelieving others. 

Rather, we have that in the Body. Though even so fractured (ah, that is a grief for another day to write--still praying for clarity and guidance!)...but amongst the body we should expect that there would be respectful, loving accord. Because we love Christ, and by extension, one another. 

But it's wrong-minded to expect the cultural mandates of God for activity amongst His people--as guided by His Spirit's working within us each--to extend to the relationships unbelievers will have with us. We are still to love. We are still to have charity. But the love of God and the peace of God are not like that of the world, being founded upon and resilient in Truth. So, those matters will not ultimately look and feel and sound like the world's ideals--the world's ideals reject God, rejecting His sovereignty and thus Truth, centrally. 

Our core motives and trajectories are fundamentally at odds (irreconcilably so) with those of people who are outside of Christ. So, there will be difficulties. 

But Western, secular culture has a social gospel which includes having a "right" to peaceful, comfortably environments. That flat-out deviates from Scripture. Jesus, Himself, plainly said we will have trouble in this world. 

Navigating that, though, is what's sanctifying and a point of utter submission: we don't possess the breadth of knowledge of circumstances or clarity of reasoning to be able to stand in the day of adversity, except that God is with us, as we draw near to Him. And even so, again, if He ordains that we would falter or not be helped for a moment, we can rest assured that He has has not left us, He has not forsaken, and His will is good for us and all will work toward good--He cannot deny Himself, but is ever as He has ever been and will be, and so He is faithful. 

Even though we cannot plumb the depths of His wisdom as to understand why, in His economy, some things appear so rife with only grief at times, and suffering, then even so He will be glorified ultimately--we can trust that. He has shown Himself faithful in countless ways and displayed His love and power in fathomless matters: foremost of which is in Christ, Himself, coming to walk among us and give Himself as an offering for many. 

God has shown fathomless mercy, depths of grace unimaginable. 

We would otherwise all have been consumed in His wrath, far before now, except for His longsuffering patience toward us. 

So, at times, when all manner of reviling breaks loose, Jesus does remind me that He is with me. And He graciously reminds me that there is a gentle honor, humbling, to be given the grace to walk in His footsteps in any menial, trivial, fleeting capacity as it were. To carry my own cross, though with His help even so. 

It is better to suffer wrong without having done wrong. Though I have at times suffered wrong rightly, even so. All the better for the other to be in any significant capacity the case now. 

Even though each affords a great opportunity to bare my heart before God once more and ask Him to reveal that which is not like Him, any wicked way in me, to purify and create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me. To return to me the joy of my salvation. That I may love Christ, even as my first love, once again. 

The way there is through the refiner's fire, then, as He gives. 

No one else is able to enter with us, really. Each to each, we must press in and press on in seeking Christ. And in seeking that He will give us wisdom and tenacity. 

Some moments of adversity have been to such extent that for months, the only option was to submit continually to Christ, while knowing He alone is holy and good and I have no justification for myself apart from Him, and no reason for remaining submitted to God in the midst of hostility (seeking that I would relent from submitting to God, moreover, to "ease the consciences" of those convicted by so doing)...except that I'm not my own any longer--He has bought me and He is worthy. 

So, let's press on then. What a high calling, to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and share in the sufferings of Christ!