“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23
Have you noticed that life is like a wild ride on a roller coaster? It is constantly going up and down and around — and even upside down. Worse yet, like Disney’s Space Mountain (a roller coaster in the dark), you don’t get to anticipate what comes next. Life’s sudden twists and turns and drops catch us by surprise and leave us breathless. The sheer randomness of it bewilders us — and we don’t like it. Not one bit.
To make life on this wild ride more palatable, we have crafted and adopted a belief that following Jesus and obeying God’s commands will tame the wild out of life — that it will be gentler, you know, more domesticated. It makes sense to us that doing good leads to good outcomes and security — and doing bad leads to negative consequences and suffering. It’s a fair and just belief system. Preachers like teaching it — and listeners like hearing it. There’s just one problem with it: it is not true.
During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “He (God) causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Matthew 5:45. In Matthew 13:24-30, He teaches about the wheat and the weeds, the good and the bad, growing together in the field.
The fact is, good and bad happen to everyone. We live in a broken world — and following Jesus doesn’t insulate you from trials and tribulations. In fact, following Jesus actually adds more wild to the ride.
Jesus drives this truth home in Matthew 10. The entire chapter is summed up in verse 22, “You will be hated by everyone because of me.” Ponder on that statement for a moment.
Moses saw suffering for Christ as the better way. Hebrews 13:26 says, “By faith Moses when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward.” By all accounts, Moses’ suffered a lot. He chose the wild ride of faith over the comforts of this world.
While still young, Stephen was stoned to death. The young mother, Perpetua, faced death in an arena over the comforts of family and wealth. You should read her story. Just type Perpetua the Martyr into an internet search engine. Her story is both heartbreaking and inspiring. As old men, Paul was imprisoned and then beheaded, and Peter was crucified upside down because he didn’t feel worthy of dying as Jesus had died. They viewed suffering for Jesus as an honor and privilege. So, what’s our problem? Why do we generally equate suffering with punishment? They certainly didn’t!
Our problem is guilt and fear-based in ignorance of the truth. Our belief system lies to us. It tells us that suffering equals punishment, that God doesn’t listen or care, or worse, that He doesn’t even exist. We have no confidence because we have bought into a convenient lie of our own making.
Joseph and Job both suffered terribly, not because they were bad, but because God chose them for redemptive purposes. See Genesis 37-50 and Job 1-2. This is a hard but true teaching. If we thought following Jesus would tame the ride, we thought wrong. We should ask ourselves, “What part of ‘deny yourself and take up your cross daily’ are we not understanding?”
Obscuring God’s Plan — Words Without Knowledge
Job’s wife and friends tried to explain God’s design through the prism of our good=blessed, suffering=punishment belief system. See Job 3-37. You can read what God thought of their wordy nonsense in Job 38-40. Spoiler alert: It made Him very angry.
Truth and Confidence
For those who follow Jesus, good=redemption, and suffering=redemption. Regardless of what you are experiencing, God is working out His sovereign will of redemption. This is our confidence!
Jesus lived in this confidence as He turned His face resolutely toward Jerusalem. See Luke 9:51. He did the same when He got up from his Gethsemane prayer and confidently faced His betrayer. See Mathew 26:46.
Paul confidently embraced his difficulties, declaring that he would boast and delight in weaknesses, insults, hardships, and persecutions. See 2 Corinthians 12:10.
John encourages us, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us — whatever we ask — we know that we have what we asked of him.” I John 5:14-15.
This is our confidence! It is the confidence of living securely in God’s sovereign will. As we follow Jesus, everything we experience in this broken world is sovereign-planned redemption. Everything. This is truth from the Spirit. Everything else rises from the Spirit of falsehood. See I John 4:1-6.
Rejoice!
If you ask God for something and He grants it — hallelujah! He is working out redemption through your story! You have been granted a season of blessing to be a channel through which redemption flows. Rejoice in it!
If you ask God for something and He does not grant it — hallelujah! He is working out redemption through your story! You have been granted a season of suffering so that you can be a channel through which redemption flows. Rejoice in it! (I told you this is a hard truth – but it is the truth.)
This is why we can confidently rejoice and give thanks in everything! See I Thessalonians 5:16-18. It explains how Paul could be content in any and every situation and why he testified, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:13.
Our confidence in God’s sovereign plan allows us to declare along with Job, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” Hallelujah and AMEN!
Let’s follow Jesus confidently! Let’s live boldly in God’s redemptive plan and make 2022 the greatest year of redemption yet! With faith, with God, we can! Happy New Year!
