How To Endure Difficult Times So To Accomplish Christ's Mission

When we begin to join Christ on His mission and become intentional about making reproducing disciple makers, we can rest assured that we will run into times of trials and tribulations!  Difficult times is something we can guarantee will happen and is something we will need to learn to deal with.  

In Luke 9:23 we hear Jesus telling people what is expected of anyone who wishes to be one of his disciples, 

"Then he said to them all, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily, and follow me."

According to Jesus there are three things that are essential if someone truly wants to become one of His disciples.

1. They Must Deny Themselves: A life of a disciple of Christ is a life of self-denial.  To be His disciples means to no longer have your own ambitions, your own goals or your own desires. Instead, your life is for Christ and Him alone.  You surrender your will for the will of Christ and your desire is to accomplish God's will. 

2. They Must Pick Up Their Cross Daily: The cross in Jesus' day was a painful instrument of death. Joining Christ on His mission quite often will be a very painful experience. Many have suffered greatly and even died for their commitment to Christ and His mission.  
3. They Must Follow Him: It is Christ who sets the place for our missional assignment - not us! He's the one who tells us where to go - not us telling him where we are willing to go.  Quite often Christ's followers found themselves in the most darkest of places, led their by Christ, for the purpose of sharing with those who live in those troubled areas the Gospel.

The suffering and difficult times we may experience are part of God's will for us and in accomplishing the mission set before us!

Jesus Understood Clearly The Pain Associated With Carrying A Cross

As we all clearly know Jesus knew what it meant to pick up a cross and carry it! It meant to suffer and then die to accomplish the work set before Him. Even Jesus didn't relish the thought of going to the cross and would have preferred a different solution if possible.  In Matthew 26:39 we get the rare opportunity to listen in on a prayer by Jesus to His Heavenly Father.  It was a prayer concerning the cross.  Listen to what Jesus asks:

"Going a little farther, He felled with His face to the ground and prayed, 'My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will but as you will."

Jesus didn't like the idea of going to the cross. He understood clearly the pain and suffering that was going to come with it. He referenced it as a "cup". This was an Old Testament imagery that was a reference to the Cup of "God's Wrath" being poured out as judgement.  Jesus understood that going to the cross meant that he would be experiencing the full unbridled wrath of His Father.  This was not a pleasant thought at all. 

There's no written record of the Father's answer but we do know what it was by the actions of Jesus and His resolve to go to the cross and die.  The Father's answer was simple,

"Son, you must go to the cross if people's sins are to be forgiven."

And out of love for us Jesus endured the cross.

Just like Jesus was to take up His cross, Jesus tells us that we are to pickup our cross daily and follow him.  He is telling us that on a day by day basis we are to have a heart willing to suffer and possibly die in order to join Him on his mission of redeeming the world.  We must be willing to deny our self interests and desires in order that others, still lost in sin, can hear the Good News and be saved. We must be willing to die, if need be, so others can be born again. 

But how do you do that? How do we endure the pain and suffering that comes with being on mission with Christ so others can be saved?  Again, we find our answer in the example of Jesus.

Jesus Refocused & Looked Past The Suffering.

In Hebrews 12:2 we find our answer through Jesus' example.

" ... For the joy set before Him he endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the Thrown of God."

How did Jesus endure the cross? Not by focusing on the cross but look past it and focusing on the joy that would come after the cross. 

1. The joy of knowing that everything that needed to be done for the salvation of men had been accomplished. 
2. The joy that He was obedient to His father even to the point of death on a cross. 
3. The joy of all those men, women, boys and girls dressed in white robes standing around the Thrown of God singing Holy, Holy, Holy.  Jesus was focusing on the End-vision. 

That's how we endure daily picking up our cross with all the pain associated with it!  We focus, not on the trial or tribulation but on all those who will receive Jesus by faith because of our faithfulness; by focusing on hearing Jesus words spoken to us, "Well done good and faithful servant"; by focusing on the "JOY" that will come when Christ returns and finds us faithful to the call. 

THAT'S HOW YOU ENDURE!

1 Hard To Swallow Explanation For Why God's People Suffer

Have you ever asked a question, sincerely wanting an answer, but once the answer was given you really didn't like it?  When it comes to why God allows His people to suffer no answer is really comforting.  The answer itself actually might be very hard to swallow and accept.  

In today's post I am going to lead us to examine one explanation for why God's people suffer. But let me be up front with you from the get go; I don't think it's going to taste very good in your mouth.  It's true but hard to accept.  And while it may be hard to accept it is also at the same time very challenging and noble.  Take a moment and read the verse that I am going to be using as my text.

"For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.  But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you." 2 Corinthians 4:6-12 (NIV)

I just love how verse 6 starts off.  God who made the light shine in darkness also made His light shine in our hearts through the knowledge of God that we see in Christ.  GOD MADE HIS LIGHT SHINE IN US!  That's just powerful.  We didn't discover the Light!  We didn't create the Light!  We did't even put the Light inside ourselves.  The Light of Christ that shines through us is a work of God from start to completion.  It was through God's initiative and by His own hand that the Light of Christ lives in us and shines through us.  In other words, we are God's chosen vessels, that He is displaying His light through in our part of this spiritually dark world.  That's our purpose and our mission.  POWERFUL!  SIMPLY POWERFUL!

We contain Christ's Light in "Jars of Clay" or in our broken and feeble mortal bodies.  Now here it comes. This is the part that can be hard to swallow!  God has chosen to display his light in the broken down and beaten up bodies of His saints in order to show the world that the power His saints display are not from them but really from God.  

God wants to make sure that the world realizes who is truly the one powerful!  God wants to make sure that we, his saints, don't get the credit for what He has done and for the credit that He deserves.  And to insure that God's power and Light is manifested to the world in such a way that He alone get's the glory, He (God) allows his saints to experience trials, tribulations, persecutions and all kinds of hardships.  In dying with Christ, through persecution, the life of Christ is manifested through us!

Here's why I also call this explanation and this kind of lifestyle noble:  It's what the Apostle Paul says at the end of these verses.

"So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you." 

It's NOBLE because all this suffering and dying is intended for the eternal life to be made available to others who still need to experience it.  Nobility isn't define by what you say you believe but through your acts of righteousness out of your beliefs.  What better act of righteousness is there than a person willing to suffer and even die so that others can see Jesus and receive eternal life?  DON'T YOU THINK IT SOUNDS VERY CHRIST LIKE? ISN'T THAT EXACTLY WHAT CHRIST DID FOR US?

As Followers of Christ we are still here on planet earth for one reason and one reason only!  That reason is simply so we can live a powerful missional life that brightly shines the Light of Christ in our part of this dark world.  If nothing else is accomplished and we simple shine Jesus in a way that God gets the glory and not us then we've accomplish all that is of real importance. And as we accept our role of being the Light of the World then we need to also accept the very real possibility that suffering will be a part of that shining.