Suffering Is Part Of The Plan

For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;

Philippians 1:29

You may not think this to be true at first, but to believe in Christ and to suffer for His name sake is a gift… We would never truly equate suffering with a gift; however, in the body of Christ suffering is gaining… This is why Paul says “For unto you it is given…” You have been given a chance to allow your tears to water a seed, you have been afforded a (n) opportunity to allow your pain to produce growth and allow your work to not be in vain… We believe in a lot of things, when we are young we believe in Santa Clause, when we get a little older we believe in our friends and soon we believe in the first relationship we have… Each of these things are either untrue or lead to disappointment… Today, place your belief in something real, place your belief in something that will last throughout eternity, place your belief in Christ… It is only in Him that through suffering we can smile knowing what will eventually come to pass… It is only in Jesus that we can be cast down amongst our peers and have faith that we will be exalted… I was once told that if you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything… I was also told that when you don’t make a choice you have already made one… Today, many of us are trying to straddle the fence of life that divides good and evil… We want to “have our cake and eat it too;” however, for many of us the one thing we don’t want to do is work to succeed… Today let us look at our lives and see how much suffering we try to avoid for the name of Christ, take a look at how many times you have quenched your thirst for Christ because of what people might say or do, let’s see how often we refute His name around certain people or how often we put our religion on the shelf to fit in or get ahead… Like I said earlier, suffering is a part of life, the thing to note though, is that it can either lead to growth or death… Which path of suffering are you choosing today?

ALL FOR HIS GLORY!