Our sufferings are Christ's sufferings

I Thessalonians 2:14-15

Our sufferings are His sufferings and the church's sufferings and the sufferings of the righteous throughout history.

In this section Paul makes a direct comparison between the sufferings of the Thessalonians from their countrymen with the sufferings of Christians in other places with the sufferings of Christ with the sufferings of the prophets. Why does this matter? I think that when we were suffering in China because of persecution from another American teacher, from the inquiries of the government and from serious illness that we were often tempted to wonder why the rest of Christians, especially those in the US, could get by with so little suffering. We understood that our sufferings were in some small way completing the sufferings of Christ for a fallen world, but I don't think that I ever thought of the cross as a central point around which all suffering for righteousness sake clustered for all of human history. That is, I did not feel when I was lying on a narrow gurney in a local Chinese clinic getting an IV by multiple shots twice a day instead of by bag to try to avoid infection, that somehow this connected in any specific way to the prophets of old or the ancient Church through the Cross. But this is the way I see this passage as presenting it. All suffering for the cause of Christ connects together through the cross.

Thank you, Lord, for taking all my suffering on Yourself, so that the little I have suffered is tied eternally to You through the Cross.

Abolishing death

"God's own purpose ... has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." II Time 1: 9-10

What a statement: God's purpose was revealed through Jesus and abolished death! For the past several years I have been sick a lot and sometimes seemed near death, so somehow the thought that the purpose of God in Jesus was to abolish death is especially dear to me. If I abolish something, I forbid it to occur or be. So God forbade death. He said, "It's got to stop!!!" The alienation from God must end forever! What amazing good news. But He did not stop there. He not only ended death, but also brought life and immortality. So, maybe the absence of death would have seemed good enough to us, but it was not good enough to Him. In His love for us He enabled me to have full, eternal life with Him. That is an amazing trade, to remove the greatest curse of the ages and place the ageless and greatest blessing on me.

Father, help me to live today in the full light of your life. Help my life to reveal the end of death and the ageless life to the world around me.

Freely give us all things

"He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" Romans 8:32

I have been meditating on this verse this past week as amazing things have happened over and over. The Lord has blessed us with several major financial blessings, but best of all He has used these and other things to reach out to a person from another culture and religious background. As this person has seen our God and Father working miracles in our lives, one of which she was involved with, she has been encouraged to ask questions that have allowed me to share Jesus with her.

What a God! Somehow, when these things started to happen, I thought they were to encourage me, and I am sure they were. But as the week developed, it became clear that they were also for her. This is the God I serve: a God who can work good for everyone at the same time, a God who shows His love to those who believe and to those who do not, and a God who answers prayers, even ones we did not know specifically how to ask for!