I've been thinking a lot lately about the various ways I have suffered for Christ. Paul listed them once. I too have even been physically harmed several times because I would not renounce Jesus as the only Way to God. So, I thought it might be interesting to see what other things I might have in common with his list. It simply reminds me what I already know and have traveled well: how can the glimmers of this world interfere with my sanctification when I have been built up in Christ to surrender so much?
Sometimes I ask this question then regret I said it, as if I am requiring God to prove to me my weakness. I find this both encouraging and defeating all at once.
But I remembered that Paul said it was foolish to list his sufferings for Christ.
Then also, earlier in the day I pulled out the 24-page paper I wrote for my Wednesday morning bible study leaders. The woman who created our study, hand-wrote some additional comments to me in the margins when she gave the paper back. I hadn't read them till this morning. To Philippians 3:7-8 (the famous passage "that I may gain Christ") she wrote in the side:
Paul may here have been referring to his past as a prominent Jewish scholar, etc. [But as I think more of your point,] this is an interesting new insight to me in regards to this passage.
Which was pretty cool. My point from that passage had been:
Paul couldn't call righteous at this time the activities he once did in his life. Some things that had been righteous because they required faith, had eventually become sin because it became routine, not inspired and founded by faith! Routine doesn't require faith, does it?
There are two passages where Paul looks back on serving Christ, and boasts. Philippians 3:3-17-
For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.
The other passage of boasting is 2 Corinthians 11:21-33 and into chapter 12, verses 1-11 -
What anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast about. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?
If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not lying. In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me. But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.
I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell. I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say.
To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
I have made a fool of myself, but you drove me to it. I ought to have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the "super-apostles," even though I am nothing.
For Paul there are two categories of boast. One is his flesh, and the other his appointed sufferings for Christ. Paul boasts of his natural human position and privileges, which he forsook once saved. And I think he also ongoingly-forsakes the boast of suffering for Christ to advance the gospel. All of it is attributed under the category of "garbage."
Paul can boast, but it is foolish, it is not mature.
It's garbage. In comparison. Why? Just imagine if the Christian you knew didn't need to persist on today, in living by the power of God? What if he only wanted to talk about the accomplishments of the past like an excuse to be done? But that's not God's will.
In God's perspective, that list of Christian service "gains nothing" (2 Cor. 12:1).
I am incredibly encouraged by reading on in Chapter 12 and 13 of 2 Corinthians. Paul gives an alternate method to measure Christ's glory in his life!! He measures the magnitude of accomplishment by what he is doing right now.
2 Corinthians 13:3-9 -
...since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you. For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you.
Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.
Now I pray to God that you do no evil, not that we should appear approved, but that you should do what is honorable, though we may seem disqualified. For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. And this also we pray, that you may be made complete.
Suffering for Christ is proved not by a list from my past, but by the power of God in me today.
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