The Greek word commonly used in the New Testament for "suffer" is "pascha", or "to feel", meaning "to feel negative emotion or pain".
James 1:2-4, "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."
Suffering destroys our confidence in our flesh. Phil. 3:3-4; Jn. 6:63
Suffering drives us to dependence on God in faith. Jn. 15:5
Suffering deepens our view of life, health and death and makes each day more valuable. James 4:14
Suffering demands us to look beyond ourselves and others in crisis. Rom. 1:30; 2 Tim. 3:2
Suffering is not strange or unusual for Christians (1Pet. 4:12; 2Tim. 3:12).
One should rejoice when a partaker of the sufferings of Christ (1Pet. 4:13; Mt. 5:10).
The greater the suffering the greater the joy and glory (1Pet. 4:13; Rom. 8:17-18).
Besides the greater glory to come the Christian has the Holy Spirit upon him now to enable him to endure.
(1Pet. 4:14; Rom. 8:26-27).Christian sufferings glorify God (1Pet. 4:14; Rom. 8:17-18).
It is an honour, not a shame, to suffer as a Christian (1Pet. 4:16).
Though sufferings begin with Christians, they end in an eternal weight of damnation to the ungodly.
(1Pet. 4:17-18).Sufferings should be borne by Christians, in patience as in the will of God, realizing that God is always faithful to His own in their sufferings (1Pet. 4:19; 1Cor. 10:13).
Rewards for Christian Suffering:
Great joy (1Pet. 4:13-14)
Eternal consolation (2Cor. 1:7)
Glory to God (1Pet. 4:16)
Making Jesus known (2Cor. 4:11)
Life to others (2Cor. 4:12)
Reign with Christ (2Tim. 2:12)
Greater glory in heaven (2Cor. 4:17)
Making grace manifest (2Cor. 4:15)
Guarantee of judgment (2Th. 1:5)
Spirit upon us (1Pet. 4:14)
Christian suffering does not consist of:
Suffering for murder (1Pet. 4:15)
Suffering as a thief (1Pet. 4:15)
Suffering for being an evildoer
Suffering for being a busybody (1Pet. 4:15)
Suffering for any crime listed in Rom. 1:18-32; 1Cor. 6:9-11; Gal. 5:19-21
Christian suffering does consist of:
Persecution for righteousness (Mt. 5:10; Mt. 13:21; Mk. 10:30; Jn. 15:20)
Revilings and slander (Mt. 5:11-12; Mt. 10:25; Acts 13:45; 1Pet. 4:4)
False accusations (Mt. 10:17-20)
Scourgings for Christ (Mt. 10:17)
Rejection by people (Mt. 10:14)
Hatred by the world (Mt. 10:22; Jn. 15:18-21)
Hatred by relatives (Mt. 10:21-36)
Martyrdoms (Mt. 10:28; Acts 7:58)
Temptations (Lk. 8:13; Jas. 1:2-16)
Shame for His name (Acts 5:41)
Imprisonments (Acts 4:3; Acts 5:18; Acts 12:4)
Tribulations (Acts 14:22; 2Th. 1:4)
Stonings (Acts 14:19; 2Cor. 11:25)
Beatings (Acts 16:23; 2Cor. 11:24-25)
Being a spectacle to people (1Cor. 4:9)
Misunderstanding, necessities, defamation, and despisings (1Cor. 4:10-13)
Trouble, affliction, distresses, tumults, labours, watchings, fastings, and evil reports.
(2Cor. 6:8-10; 2Cor. 11:26-28)Reproaches (Heb. 13:13; 1Pet. 4:14)
Trials (1Pet. 1:7; 1Pet. 4:12)
Satanic opposition (Eph. 4:27; Eph. 6:12)
Groaning and travailing because of the curse (Rom. 8:17-26)
The real reason for suffering is that God respects us enough to let our actions have real consequences. He gives men the possibility to actually have a huge say in their own eternal destiny, as well as their destiny on earth. God is looking for people to share His goodness eternally with. He is looking for a real love relationship. That would be impossible if we had no real choice in the matter. These real choices do have big effects. All we do is reverberating throughout eternity and has more consequences than we could possibly imagine. Bad choices hurt people - including yourself. Bad choices invite the involvement of evil spirits, which keep people in bondage to things which bring no lasting satisfaction and often outright misery and unhappiness.
"God is attracted to weakness." (see Psalm 51:17)
Kimber Kaufmann
Christian suffering is a specific kind of suffering which has three main features. First, it is voluntary Second, it is bearing the burdens of others. Third, it is done for the sake of Christ. This is suffering that one freely and gladly assumes in the loving of one's neighbour or neighbourhood. As such, it is nothing other than answering the demands of Christian discipleship. This suffering entails the active following of Jesus into a hurting and often hostile world, doing the "extraordinary" not from some heroic impulse but from the prompting of the Spirit of Christ."
Suffering for, and with Jesus takes on many forms. It could be overt persecution from either non-Christians or religious people who oppose our passionate faith in Jesus Christ. It may come in the form of hardship, sickness, disease, loneliness or the lack of some comforts because you have chosen to deny yourself for the purpose of reaching out to others with the love of God in Christ. In doing so you may be exposed to anything from minor hardships to life threatening situations—this too is suffering for and with Christ and it is part of our calling—to suffer for and with Christ.
It is not unusual for Christians to feel that, once they come to faith, all problems will disappear. Others may feel that they have inherited the right to continual happiness. Both ideas are wrong. When sin came into the world, it brought hard work and sweat and suffering and death. Although our God sent His Son to remove the penalty of sin and restore the joy and happiness that the first man once knew, sin still exists! The miserable effects of sin can be seen in the world in which we live and in our personal lives. We see our best laid plans collapse. Parents have problems with their children and sometimes with each other. Financial loss often seems to be at the doorstep and sickness and disability trouble us all.
God's Word teaches that all suffering in the Christian life is by God's will, purpose and design, and either caused or allowed by Him, for our immediate or ultimate good. (Eph 1:11 & 2:10, Phil 1:9 & Rom 8:28)
God promises those who follow him that he will work everything in our lives for good.
It is clear that God's focus is always on the big picture both for us individually and for mankind collectively. With a world and human nature obsessed with the immediate and instant gratification this can sometimes be difficult to accept.
The major part of this promise is the promise of eternal life, but for people suffering in this life it can be hard to keep an eye on his long-term goal- a life with him forever.
"The things we try to avoid and fight against - tribulation, suffering and persecution - are the very things that produce abundant joy in us. Huge waves that would frighten the ordinary swimmer produce a tremendous thrill for the surfer who has ridden them. "We are more than conquerors through Him" IN all these things - not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. A saint doesn't know the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it. Paul said "I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation".
Oswald Chambers
The hardest thing about suffering is remembering the central focus of the test: to keep our faith strong.. If we lose this focus, we fail the test. Failure is never final; God is always forgiving and will restore us even when we have failed.
"Those who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls."
Charles Spurgeon
The New Testament has some very significant passages about suffering. When read the New Testament there are no longer any of the questions found in the Old Testament such as "Does God care? Has he forgotten to be merciful?" There is joy, confidence and hope here that even the greatest suffering cannot overwhelm. Something has made a dramatic difference. In the New Testament, God has a face. He has made himself known in the person of Jesus Christ.
Suffering highlights the fact that we are frail human beings; that is to say, we are not God. Some, however, have no greater ambition than to be their own God. They are autotheists - self-gods. They imagine that they are accountable to no one higher than themselves. As the poet William Ernest Henley says, they are the masters of their fate, and the captains of their souls!
Some contemporary false teachers say that Christians who suffer are out of God's will. Such teaching reflects a shallow and ungodly interpretation of the Bible. Scripture clearly states that Christians Will suffer for their faith.
Matt. 5:11-12; 10:17; 24:9; Luke 21:12; John 15:20; 16:2; 2 Tim. 3:12.
To say that Christians who are suffering for their faith aren't claiming their resources is totally wrong. Jesus was absolute in the Will of God, perfectly righteous, gifted, and loved by God, yet suffered unjustly on a cross. Those who suffer for their faith in Christ are like their Master and perfectly within God's will.
Christians suffer for many reasons, sometimes through no fault of their own. A Christian will experience a normal amount of suffering as part of human existence. But if a Christian stays in fellowship with God and grows in Christ consistently, this type of suffering can be a great blessing and an opportunity to witness to other Christian and to those who don't believe.
Loving parents long to protect their children from unnecessary pain. But wise parents know the danger of over-protection. They know that the freedom to choose is at the heart of what it means to be human, and that a world without choice would be worse than a world without pain. Worse yet would be a world populated by people who could make wrong choices without feeling any pain. No one is more dangerous than the liar, thief, or killer who doesn't feel the harm he is doing to himself and to others (Genesis 2:15-17).
"Until we understand that our grief outweighs a thousand joys, we will never understand what Christianity is all about."
God takes no pleasure in the suffering of His children (2 Peter 3:9). He is patient, loving and merciful, operating for our eternal good outside our notions of time and fairness. His only goal is to reconcile His children to Himself. The Good News is that God loves us so much that He provided a free ticket to renewal and salvation through the suffering and death of His Son, Jesus Christ (John 3:16). Suffering and death in this corrupted world are guaranteed for each of us. It's our choice whether to accept God's free ticket to eternal life in paradise.
(Acts 4:12).
Anon.
"Many of us do not realize that pain and joy run together. When we cut ourselves off from pain, we unwittingly cut ourselves off from joy as well."
Clyde Reed, Celebrate the Temporary.
"The discontented person thinks that everything that he does for God is too much and everything God does for him is too little."
Kimber Kauffman
"I walked a mile with pleasure, she chatted all the way. It left me none the wiser, for all she had to say. I walked a mile with sorrow and ne're a word said she, but oh the things I learned from her, when sorrow walked with me."
Anon
"Our heavenly father never takes anything from his children unless He means to give them something better."
George Mueller
"The difference between shallow happiness and a deep sustaining joy is sorrow. Happiness lives where sorrow is not. When sorrow arrives, happiness dies. It can't stand pain. Joy, on the other hand, rises from sorrow and therefore can withstand all grief. Joy, by the grace of God, is the transfiguration of suffering into endurance, and of endurance into character, and of character into hope--and the hope that has become our joy does not (as happiness must for those who depend upon it) disappoint us."
Walter Wangrin
The story is told of a Christian man who was undergoing a great deal a suffering. A friend of his noticed the struggle and was struck by the man’s buoyancy. One day he said to his good-humoured friend, "Suffering colours life doesn't it." "Yes," the man replied, "but I propose to choose the colour!"
Jesus met up with pain each day. He would see so many people suffering. Many would bring the most sick and troubled people to His very feet. He would bring His Masterful healing of touch. Jesus could understand suffering more than we could begin to think. Jesus understood pain. But He knew if we were to endure suffering as His people, then we must understand God's loving purpose.
"We ought to celebrate the positive glorious gifts of God, but the worth of God shines in a powerful way to the world when in the midst of suffering we still don't curse God but say "the Lord gave and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord."
John Piper
"Everywhere a greater joy is preceded by a greater suffering."
Augustine
"Ecclesiastes holds that it is better to go to a House of Mourning than a House of Rejoicing, for in a House of Mourning one is able to learn so much more."
Pesach Krauss in his book Why Me?
"Joy is that deep settled confidence that God is in control of every area of my life."
Paul Sailhamer.
"I believe that pain and suffering can either be a prison or a prism."
Tim Hansel, You Gotta Keep Dancin'
"Never fear shadows. They simply mean there's a light shining somewhere nearby."
Ruth E. Renkel
"Joy is a much sought after quality of life....Joy comes with giving away - losing, not gaining."
Evelyn Christenson
"This is the secret of joy. We shall no longer strive for our own way; but commit ourselves, easily and simply, to God's way, acquiesce in His will, and in so doing find our peace."
Evelyn Underhill
"There never was night that had no morn."
Dinah Mulock Craik
(Psalm 30:5 - Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.)
"Suffering is a short pain and a long joy."
Henry Suso
"Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal."
Thomas Moore
"Strength is born in the deep silence of long suffering hearts; not amid joy."
Felicia Hemans
"How happy a person is depends upon the depth of his gratitude."
John Miller
"Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it."
John Donne
"We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it in full."
Marcel Proust
"Godly people... nobly endure hard things. They know that their existence is meaningful and that they are destined for unlimited pleasure at the deepest level in heaven. Because they keenly feel that nothing now quite meets the standards of their longing souls, the quiet but deeply throbbing ache within them drives them not to complaint, but to anticipation and further yieldedness."
Larry Crabb
"As soon as a baby enters the world, the baby is immediately introduced to pain. It is somewhat symbolic that life begins with a cry."
RC Sproul
"We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world."
Helen Keller
"The problem of evil is raised more often by spectators of life than the actual combatants. You will hardly ever find that the great sufferers are the great sceptics."
James Stewart
"Once you see your affliction as a preparation to meet God, you won't be quick to call it suffering again. Even though I have rough moments in my wheelchair, for the most part I consider my paralysis a gift. Just as Jesus exchanged the meaning of the Cross from a symbol of torture to one of hope and salvation, He gives me the grace to do the same with my chair. If a cross can become a blessing, so can a wheelchair. The wheelchair, in a sense, is behind me now. The despair is over. There are now other crosses to bear, other "wheelchairs" in my life to be exchanged into gifts."
Joni Eareckson Tada
"Because of my sufferings, I will appreciate (in heaven) the scars of Christ and also the scars of other believers. (In heaven) I will see men and women that in the world were cut in pieces, burnt in flames, tortured and persecuted, eaten by beasts, and drowned in the seas - - all for the love they had for the Lord. What a privilege it will be to stand in their ranks! But what a shame it would be if, in conversing with them, we could only shrug our shoulders and prattle Me? Suffer?...... Perhaps we would bite our complaining tongues more often if we stopped to picture this scene in heaven. The examples of other suffering saints are meant to inspire us upward on our heavenly journey home."
Joni Eareckson Tada
"Christianity is not a religion of comfort - - - at least not at first."
CS Lewis, Mere Christianity
Joy comes from seeing the complete fulfilment of the specific purpose for which I was created and born again, not from successfully doing something of my own choosing. The joy our Lord experienced cam from doing what his Father sent Him to do. And He says to us, "As the Father has sent me, so I also send you."(Jn 20:21). Have you received a ministry from the Lord? If so, you must be faithful to it - - to consider your life valuable only for the purpose of fulfilling that ministry. Knowing that you have done what Jesus has sent you to do, think how satisfying it will be to hear him say to you, "Well done, good and faithful servant." (Mt 25:21). We each have to find a niche in life, and spiritually we find it when we receive a ministry from the Lord. To do this we must have close fellowship with Jesus and must know Him as more than our personal savoir. And we must be willing to experience the full impact of Acts 9:16 - "I will show you how many things he must suffer for my name's sake."
Oswald Chambers
"The true Christian reaction to suffering and sorrow is not the attitude of self-pity, fatalism or resentment; it is the spirit which takes life's difficulties as a God given opportunity, and regards its troubles as a sacred trust, and wears the thorns as a crown."
James Stewart
"The joy of the Lord is your strength." (Neh 8:10). Where do saints get their joy? If we did not know some Christians well, we might think from just observing them that they have no burdens at all to bear. But we must lift the veil from our eyes. The fact that the peace, light and joy of God is in the is proof that a burden is there as well. The burden that God placeson us squeezes the grapes in our lives and produces wine, but most of us only see the wine and not the burden. No power on earth or in hell can conquer the spirit of God living within the living spirit; it creates an inner invincibility. If your life is only producing a whine and not a wine, then ruthlessly kick it out. It is definitely a crime for a Christian to be weak in God's strength."
Oswald Chambers
"It is the very joy of this earthly life to think that it will come to an end."
Charles Spurgeon
"How much more pleasant this world would be if we magnified our blessings the way we magnify our disappointments."
Anon
"It is an unfortunate thing for the Christian to be melancholy. If there is any man in the world that has a right to have a bright, clear face and a flashing eye, it is the man whose sins are forgiven him, who is saved with God's salvation."
Charles Spurgeon
"Your sorrow itself shall be turned into joy. Not the sorrow to be taken away, and joy to be put in it's place, but the very sorrow which now grieves you shall be turned into joy. God not only takes away the bitterness and gives sweetness in it's place, but turns the bitterness into sweetness itself."
Charles Spurgeon (on John 16:33)
"Sorrow for sin should be the keenest sorrow; joy in the Lord should be the loftiest joy.
Anon
"Thankfulness is the secret of joy."
Anon
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