Christian Living
“Therefore in all things, He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God … for in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted”
Hebrews 2:17-18
Today I share a word I hope and pray will cast a biblical understanding to some of the unexplainable and difficult trials we have had to or face. I do this in the hope that this understanding will enable us do a shift in position from a place where our trials make us feel confined, angry, forsaken and frustrated to a place where we not only acknowledge God’s good purpose in permitting that trial but open up to receive the power and anointing that qualifies us to be able ministers of the gospel.
Those with the faintest understanding of God’s ways know that He proves and refines men through the furnace of afflictions and trials. In Isaiah 48:10, God declares:
“Behold, I have refined you, …; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction”
Psalm 66:10-12 states:
“For You, O God, have tested us;
You have refined us as silver is refined.
You brought us into the net;
You laid affliction on our backs.
You have caused men to ride over our heads;
We went through fire and through water;
But You brought us out to rich fulfilment. “
And in Hebrews 2:10, we are told that:
“... it was fitting for Him … to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering”
Hebrews 2:14 states
“He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death”
To be able to walk successfully with God, we must know His ways. I emphasis successfully because it is possible to live for years as a Christian and yet have no testimony, like Enoch did, (See Hebrews 11:5) that we are in His will and please Him. God is unchanging and this often also reflects in the fact that He deals with all men alike. Suffering as a pathway to glory is one of His ways.
Any man who desires to be used by God as an instrument of worship must know that his cry to be used for His glory signifies surrender to His processes, including suffering. And the suffering-glory circle will repeat itself as many times as we cry for a deeper walk and encounter with the Lord (See John 15:2).
The much we can do about God’s pruning process is to apply the Job-like faith expressed in Job 23:10:
“But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold”
This perception allows our heart to stay anchored in Him confident that His thoughts towards us are good and not evil. For if we allow ourselves to murmur against or become bitter with God, we frustrate God’s purpose in allowing that suffering and disqualify ourselves from the glory that lay at the end of our sufferings. Worse than this though is that we declare ourselves unfit to minister to others.
2 Corinthians 4:17 exhorts us to endure hardship as “ … our light affliction, … is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory”.
Why would God allow us to suffer pain? I believe the strongest of His reason is that we might, by the grace with which we overcame, be able to deliver others in similar afflictions.
In Hebrews 2:15, we see Jesus, having shared in death able to:
“ … release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
Hebrews 2:18 states of Christ:
‘… in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted’.
Jesus’ ability to minister to others arose from the things He suffered.
I know that knowing the purpose of God in no way eases off the pain we have to endure but it should help to take our focus off the pain and shame choosing rather to concentrate on receiving from God the grace to persevere through the process until we stand in victory, equipped to minister to others by the same anointing and power with which we were able to prevail.
A second important purpose to suffering is that it helps to make us feel empathy to those who are suffering. We become compassionate ministers; for while the anointing does destroy the yoke on God’s people, compassion is required to identify with and carry the burden of those in need. Hebrew’s 4:15 states:
“For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are …”.
Beyond being anointed, God wants us considerate and kind-hearted with the afflicted. Inability to comprehend the reality others face in their affliction can sometimes be a barrier to ministering to them as Jesus would. Sadly though, we often can only develop the compassion level required in ministry through affliction.
Hebrews 4:16 enjoins us to come boldly to God’s throne of grace knowing that He who ministers there can sympathize with our weaknesses.
God’s anointing and compassion both come at a price. But this in no way denies the residual anointing upon every believer, present by reason of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
Affliction of itself is however no guarantee that we would be compassionate and anointed enough to continue Jesus’ works. While it has the potential to make us able ministers, it is conditional on our being able to submit to God. We cannot step into that place of power and authority except we let God use our challenging seasons to carry out His will. James 1:2-4 states:
“… count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”
Knowing this makes it easier to shift position away from confusion and sorrow at our affliction to a place of joyful endurance. Endurance produces patience and patience would produce perfection.
And perfection?
Hebrews 5:8 declares:
“… though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation “
Perfection elevates us to become authors, a word synonymous with source, inventor or originator. We thus become qualified to lead others to victory.
What more can we ask for than that we are able to walk with God all our days and are able to lead others to the victory of the Cross?
I pray that God will not let us suffer afflictions in the hands of the enemy; that He will turn every season of affliction to one of glory and that He will cause us to come out of the tempestuous seasons of life-like Jesus did (Luke 4:14) – full of the Holy Spirit and power.
Shalom!
Chi Onwuchekwa
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