The Fellowship of His Suffering
Two weeks ago Pete and his wife Susan found out that Susan has a brain tumor. She was having mild dementia and memory loss so they decided to have their family doctor run an MRI. Since then, God has been working in their lives. In the crises of life and in life’s cataclysmic moments, only God can sustain and guide. Casting all your cares upon him for he cares for you. In the short amount of time since the MRI they have made a decision to go to Houston so that the head of neurology, a renown neurosurgeon can perform surgery on Susan’s tumor. They don’t know what to expect except that the tumor is about 1/2 inch in diameter and is full of fluid. It’s imbedded deep within her brain. Life is a series of choices: We can choose our attitudes and our actions. Joy in the Lord is a choice. Susan’s favorite quote is, “joy is not the absence of pain, rather it is the presence of God.” In the midst of the crisis, God expects us to be faithful through the storms of life.
Faithfulness is not being able to keep your vows but having your vows keep you. For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that spiritual deposit which he has committed to me against that day of righteous judgement. For I was crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life that I now live, I live by the faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Our commitment is to walk in fellowship with him one step at a time. Dealing with mortality is healthy and helpful when we put our rest and our strength in him. Cory Ten Boom said, “No pit is so deep but that God is deeper still.” Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Pete reminded Susan, “if God takes you home, you’ll never miss me for a moment. However, I’ll miss you and grieve for you.” Men would rather grieve in private and not show others how much they are hurt. However, when we understand Jesus’s grief, sorrow, and pain in the Garden of Gethsemane, we will come to the same conclusion that Jesus did: “Not my will, but thine be done.”
The purpose of the walk with Christ is to get to the point that we say, “Lord, no matter what the cost, I’ll follow wherever you lead.” A true disciple is a disciplined follower of Christ. It’s like when we men get married: we don’t realize until after the vows are said that will be under surveillance by our wives for the rest of our lives. We will need to forsake our selfish selves. Wives think they will trust their husbands before the marriage but after the vows are said, our wives will find that we’re not the ideal men they thought we were. Oswald Chambers said, “God requires extreme service from you with no complaining on your part and no explaining on his part.”
Bad news in life is an opportunity for God to turn what man meant for evil into good. For all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. Chambers in “My Utmost for His Highest” said “ye are not your own.” Our life is hid with Christ in God. Our invitation to others is to invite them to enter into the fellowship of his suffering. Our highest calling is to want his glory not ours, the comfort of the Holy Spirit, not the comfort of the flesh. Jesus knew only what his father told him to do. As followers of Jesus Christ, God expects us as sons to follow in the master’s footsteps. What does it mean to really love God? Love means to give up the rights to yourself. It means that “thou shalt have no other gods between your face and God’s face.”
According to Isaiah 6, the prophet had been a friend of King Uzziah who was a Godly king who loved God. However Uzziah used the temple for a wrong purpose and was struck with leprosy and died as a result. In the year in which Uzziah died, God revealed to Isaiah a vision of the seraphim’s saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The earth is filled with his glory.” Isaiah was undone in the presence of the holy God. Nothing upon this earth can hold a candle in comparison to the glory of God.
Jesus is preparing us through the trials of life to understand what Paul said in Philippians: when one member of the body hurts, all of the body hurts. However, our attitude is within our own control. Paul said that even though I’m in a Roman prison, my circumstances are working out for the furtherance of the gospel. God who created the heavens and the earth is still in control. Despite our circumstances, when we see life from his perspective, all is well that ends well…and we know the ending of the book. We also know that His perspective is the view from the cross. The scales of our righteous judgement were balanced at the cross of Calvary… For he who knew no sin was made the perfect sin sacrifice on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in him.
Hard lessons of life are learned in the fiery crucible of life. When we are forged in the fiery furnace as earthen vessels, formed to by the potter according to his Devine design, we will be fused together, each vessel a fitting, fit for the master’s use… We are fittings within the body of Christ fitly framed together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth according to the effectual working of every part to building up of the body of Christ in love. The closest fellowship is the fellowship of suffering together. When we’ve been through the fire together, we will be fused together, our hearts knit together in love. Jesus said enter into fellowship with me. If God can know us through the sufferings together with Christ, God will use us to will and to do of his good pleasure.
God’s will is that his will be glorified in our lives. If our identity is not in Christ, we will never be able to stand before our just and loving God, clothed in his righteousness alone. Our purpose in life is the purpose of his redemption that we may be made the righteousness of God in him. The greatest opportunities in life are to display his joy, peace, long-suffering, and his mission in the midst of the trials of this life. For he who loses his life for my sake, Jesus said, shall find it. Life lived with no regrets is a life lived trusting God. For goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of this life. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth for all generations.
God’s will not my will, God’s glory not my glory, his mission is according to his purpose not mine. For we were bought with a price. Our life is not our own, we have been bought with the priceless precious blood of the innocent Lamb of God. The purpose of our life is not who we are but rather whose we are.
Make me a captive Lord, and then I shall be free.
Force me to render up my cross and I shall conqueror be.
I sink in life’s alarms, if by myself I stand, Imprison me within thine arms and free shall be my stand.
May God richly bless you!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael