SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/13/2017 9:54 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “The Suffering of the Ministry”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Colossians
1:24a
Message of the verses: “24 Now I rejoice 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 what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.”
When we left of yesterday we will looking at a number of
reasons that suffering brings believers closer to Christ, and we looked at the
first two reasons and will now begin this SD with the third reason which is
that suffering brings a future reward. I
may state that some people do not think that we should live our lives on this
earth in order to receive rewards from the Lord when we get to heaven. I certainly do not agree with this for if a
person is doing the things that the Lord has planned for them to do then that
person will receive rewards from the Lord for obeying what He wants them to do. “For we are His workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would
walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).” I have
mentioned this verse a number of times in my Spiritual Diaries to make the
point that I believe that the Lord has given us things to do in our walk with
the Lord and have even said that I believe that they were pre-ordained for
believers to do them before the foundation of the earth. Now we want to get back to our third point
here at this time. Paul writes the
following in Romans 8:17-18 “17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and
fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be
glorified with Him. 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time
are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Paul also wrote more about this in 2
Corinthians 4:17 “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an
eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,” and if you want to look at
those momentary, light afflictions you can go to the 11th chapter of
2 Corinthians to see some of the difficult things that Paul and his co-workers
went through.
The fourth reason for suffering that will bring believers
closer to the Lord is that our suffering may bring someone to a saving knowledge
of Jesus Christ as Church history is filled with accounts of those who came to
Christ after watching other suffer.
Now the fifth reason for suffering is that it frustrates
Satan as Satan wants suffering to harm us but as Paul writes in Romans 8:28 “And
we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love
God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Think about the suffering that Jesus Christ
went through while on the cross and what came out of that suffering as everyone
who is ever saved is saved because of what He did on the cross and even before
He went to the cross He said that this would cause Satan’s judgment.
Now I have to say that in his commentary John MacArthur
writes a rather long couple of paragraphs that speak of how this verse is
misused in the Roman Catholic Church and I think that the best way to
understand it is to quote it in our next SD.
My Spiritual Diaries in the evening are shorter than the
ones that I do in the morning which takes me longer to go through the books
that I study in the evening to get through, but I believe that the important
thing is to understand what we are looking at even though it may take us a
little longer to get through the book.
2/13/2017 10:12 PM
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