Lessons learned from suffering

Lessons learned from suffering

One of the first lessons we can learn from suffering is whether or not our faith is genuine. It's easy to be a Christian when everything is going well in our lives, but it's quite another thing to be faithful even when our world has fallen apart. Suffering will separate the true believers from those who are just play acting.

Another lesson we can learn from suffering is how strong our faith is. In addition, God will often use suffering to strengthen our faith. Another reason God tests us is to reveal to us what's in our hearts. Suffering will show us just how strong or weak our faith is and just how much we trust God. It shows us the areas we need to work on and those that we've managed to learn. So after a trial when we look back if we see we came through showing a strong faith, that should encourage us and let us know that our faith is real and growing and that it can and will continue to grow even stronger.

I wrote about the same example MacArthur uses a year ago on our Trials and Tribulations study if you'd like to read it again.

Abraham's trial was totally inconceivable even to Abraham's theology. When God asked him to kill his own son, it went against everything he knew about God! Yet instead of trying to get out of it, instead of questioning God to make sure he'd hard correctly, instead of demanding to know "why", Abraham simply and quietly obeyed.

MacArthur says:
This brief examination of this crucial episode in the life of Abraham demonstrates how Paul can say, “Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith that are sons of Abraham” (Gal. 3:6–7). Abraham was prepared to plunge a knife into the chest of his own son. He was submissive, obedient, and willing to worship God at any cost. God accepted Abraham’s willingness as evidence of his faith and clothed him with righteousness.....

....Such extraordinary obedience in the face of the severest of trials informs us that a believer today can endure the most difficult trials imaginable if he or she wholeheartedly trusts in God. Abraham’s test also informs us that God’s tests for us might involve people we hold very near and dear, such as sons, daughters, husbands, wives, or close friends. We may have to offer up our own Isaac—give the ones we love most over to the Lord. We may need to let them go God’s way, rather than holding on to them so they’ll live the way we’d prefer.
We can conclude that the more difficult the obedience, the more excellent it is. Abraham obeyed God in the extremity, and as a result he became the model of faith. Thus anyone who has faith in God and is thereby justified is a child in the spiritual line of Abraham. If we trust God as Abraham did, we can be confident in any test or trial.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (c1995.). The Power of Suffering

Sometimes though we can become to proud of ourselves and even of our faith, forgetting that even the strength of our faith to get through the trials is given to us through grace by God. So sometimes God can send trials to humble us and remind us not to be more confident in our spiritual strength then we should.

Romans 12:3, NIV, For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

Paul is the perfect example of this for us as the Bible tells us here:

2 Corinthians 12:7–10, NIV, To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

From a trial sent for this reason we learn to remember that we have no strength in ourselves but only what comes from God Himself. It reminds us that it is God who enables us to minister to others, not anything special or good about ourselves. Because it is only through our weakness that His strength is displayed in us.

Another reason the Lord sends trials is to wean us away from worldly things.

Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

If you recall it was material things that kept one young man out of heaven. (Mark 10:17–22) The Lord can wean us off material things in many different ways and it's probably different for each of us. It's a very important lesson to learn though, not to mention a hard one for most of us. We must learn though that material things aren't going to meet our deepest needs or our deepest desires. So the closer we get to Christ the less important material things become to us. That doesn't mean that it's wrong to have "things" or even to have money or be "rich". It isn't wrong to have them, it's wrong to depend on them, to put them first, or to live for them.

Another lesson that He sends trials for is to get us to remember our eternal hope and get us to focus on that.

I think that's something we've all experienced--trials make us long for Heaven. There are so many verses about this, but I'm only going to list portions of a few of them:

Romans 8:18, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

2 Corinthians 4:16–18, Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary,
but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 5:2–4, Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

Often people, especially unbelievers, but even some Christians seem to think that it's somehow "wrong" to be looking forward to Heaven and/or the rapture, yet that's exactly what God wants us to do! This isn't our home and He doesn't want us thinking like it is and getting all attached to it.

The next reason the Lord sends trials is to remind us of who our first love is supposed to be.

Remember, this was the question Abraham had to answer. Who did he love more--God or his son? Thankfully he had the right answer and it wasn't just head knowledge it was heart knowledge. God wants us all to have the heart knowledge and not just the head knowledge that He is our first love. So the Lord will test us to show us just where our priorities lie and who is really in that first place.

Luke 14:26–27, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Jesus isn't saying that we are to literally hate them. He is saying that we are to put Him first, above our parents, wife, husband, children, brothers and sisters etc. We are to love God more then anyone or anything else. This can be a very hard lesson and like all the other lessons God sends us, He will send them over and over and over again until we get them right. They won't always be the same scenario, but the lesson behind it will be the same until we pass the test. That's what God's "tests", "trials" are all about. He is trying to teach us to be like Jesus and conform us to the image of His Son. The great thing about it is that with Him as our Father, He isn't going to give up on us. It's His Will that we be conformed to the image of His Son, so it will happen.

We'll look at some other reasons for trials tomorrow.