Suffering as a Grace Granted Privilege
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.
Colossians 1:24
Every faithful saint in service to Christ must remember that suffering is a grace-granted privilege so that, in our dying, the church may receive life; as Paul expressed to the saints of Colossae while languishing in a Roman prison (Col. 1:24). Notwithstanding the severity of his trials, he never allowed his circumstances to rob him of his joy, because he knew that God ordained his afflictions to demonstrate to the church the power of Christ to sustain him and through him continue to build His church. This would have been an amazing testimony to the early saints. Nothing else could explain how a man could press on with such joy and vitality! Paul’s suffering had two effects. By it people were either emboldened for the gospel (Phil. 1:14), or in a cowardly way they turned away from it to embrace a gospel more in keeping with the spirit of the age—the popular approach of evangelicalism today that foolishly believes friendship with the world is a better strategy of evangelism than preaching the gospel.
By enduring the persecution intended for Christ, Paul knew he was “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s affliction.” He was the lightning rod for the world’s unending hatred of Christ—a hatred that could not be fully meted out at the cross, but will continue throughout eternity in the blasphemies of the damned (Rev. 16:9-10). Like Christ, Paul was happy to endure an extra measure of suffering as a willing substitute on behalf of the church, perhaps even sparing them untold heartaches while at the same time putting the glory and power of Christ on display. The kind of hostility he experienced from the deceitful false apostles who gained influence in the Corinthian church was especially brutal. In order to undermine his teaching they had to destroy him personally—a tactic the enemy will use against every faithful servant of Christ. If you can’t get him to corrupt the message, then discredit him as the messenger. They accused him of being ugly and unskilled as an orator (he had low entertainment value), “For they say, ‘His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account’” (2 Cor. 10:10). They criticized him for being unloving and also made slanderous accusations against his moral integrity, painting him as a deceiver who was cleverly distorting the Old Testament Scripture and twisting the words of Jesus to fit his agenda, to which he responded:
“. . . we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).
When we embrace our afflictions with this perspective, we are able to transcend the pain of our circumstances and persevere with enduring faith, knowing God’s eternal purposes are being carried out in and through us. Then when the trial has passed—and often in the midst of it—our soul can give testimony of the soul-satisfying joy of being in communion with the living God as He proves Himself powerful on our behalf. May this be the testimony of our heart.
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