What benefits do we gain from suffering?

We should not desire or seek to suffer. However, Christians should rejoice and be thankful in every circumstance knowing that it will bring about good in their lives. What are some of the good things difficulty and hardship can bring about in our lives?

  1. Suffering can cause us to seek Christ.
    1. Persecution caused the spreading of the Gospel.
    2. Suffering unjustly causes us to be conscious of God.
  2. With suffering, trials, and difficulty in life, we learn perseverance and mature as a person.

    3. We have seen some interesting things about the affluence society in the United States. As we found cures for many of the predominant diseases, diseases from too easy a live started becoming more predominate. To stay healthy we have to eat less while over two thirds of the world goes to bed hungry every day. Our work doesn't give us enough exercise so we have to exercise to stay healthy. We are finding out that the less anesthesia we give a mother during the baby's delivery the better it is for the baby.

    Just as physical exercise makes us stronger and a wind makes a tree stronger, the trials of life make our faith grow stronger if we endure them.

    1. The testing of our faith shows that our faith is genuine when we endure the test.

      2. The purpose is not to reject us but to purify our faith like the refining fire purifies metals.

    2. God disciplines those who belong to Him.

    Hardships can teach us to follow God's guidance in our lives.

  3. God can demonstrate His power in our weakness.
  4. Suffering, trials, and difficulty increase our ability to love.
    1. By providing the means to express love.
      1. If we see love as meeting the needs of other people, then we should see suffering from unfulfilled needs as an opportunity to love.
      2. Our sin was God's opportunity to show his love for us.
      3. When we seek to meet the needs of His people, we show our love for God.

      If we see love as meeting the needs of another, how do we love God who needs nothing? Some of the Greek philosophers who believed in one all-powerful God believed that God could not feel pain. However, what is consistent with the Biblical revelation is that God, who sees everything, feels all the pain and suffering in the world.

    2. By identifying with other people in their situation.
      1. The pain and suffering that we have felt helps us to identify with the pain and suffering of other people.

        2. A good example is when Paul had to urge the wealthy metropolitan Corinthians to give to the offering for the Christians in Jerusalem during a famine while the Macedonians gave beyond Paul's expectations even though they had less.

        Click here for an example of someone today.

      2. It also can allow us to identify with Christ.
        1. Christ's suffering was that He suffered for other people.

          2. When we suffer for the cause of Christ, when we suffer to meet the needs of other Christians, or even when we suffer to meet the needs of those who might become Christians, we share in Christ's suffering.

        2. We should be prepared to suffer for spreading Christ's message of salvation.

 

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