Are You Suffering ?
by:
A man turns his life over to God and does some great things! He preaches all over the world, he even was able to raise the dead… But in a tragic accident he watches helplessly as the tractor he is riding rolls over his nephew holding him in his arms he carries him to the hospital only to watch him die the question is: ARE YOU SUFFERING?
A husband is tormented by his wife’s adulteries, crying himself to sleep at times as she vividly displays herself around town. He is broken inside so I ask again: ARE YOU SUFFERING?
A child gets abused daily from a Drunken Father. He doesn’t understand why the angry exists why he is in so much trouble both he and his mother continue to get beat I ask again: ARE YOU SUFFERING?
Hellen Keller probably said it best: “the world is full of suffering… but it is also full of overcoming it!”
One of the greatest facts I have ever learned was no one ever Loved like Jesus! Yet no one ever suffered like Jesus!
The bible says that God is love, that God is all powerful, that God is illimitable, infinite, and inexhaustible yet the New Testament declares unanimously:
Matt 16:21 Jesus must suffer many things
Luke 17:24, 25 The Son of Man must suffer many things AND be rejected
Luke 22:15 I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer
Luke 24:26 Ought not the Christ to have suffered?
Luke 24:46 It was necessary for the Messiah to suffer
Acts 3:18, 17:3, Christ would suffer, Christ had to suffer
1 Pet 2:21 Christ suffered for us, 1 Pet 3:18 Christ suffered for sins
God’s Suffering… God’s Pain
Jesus was often misunderstood let’s take a look at for starters. John 14:9 have I been with you so long yet you have not know me Philip? Now turn to Luke 24:26 and we see this “ought not the Christ to have suffered?” Back in the Gospel of John Jesus proclaimed to them that they studied the scriptures because in them they have eternal life yet it is they that testify of him!
I ask the question to you today have you ever been misunderstood. Have your own intensions been looked at as if you have a different motive that what is really the truth! How about your sense of decision making? You’re arguing with a friend because you’re misunderstood or you misunderstood someone right?
If being misunderstood can sting then being rejected must cut deep!
Turn to the Gospel of John:
John 1:11 he came onto his own and his own did not receive him!
John 7:5 his brother did not believe him
Matthew 26:56 all the disciples forsook him and fled
You see Jesus wept over Jerusalem as they would not allow him to gather them like a hen does her chick, and now the question I have for you is that of do you know or have you felt the cut of reject?
False Accusations add to the burden of Suffering.
Look into Matthew 26:59-60- false accusations show that people lied about who Jesus was, what he did and what he said.
I was once faced with a deep lie against me. In high school I was pulled into the principal’s office after picking up my brother from middle school. Without going into great detail I was accused of recruiting kids to the Latin Kings. When trying to explain myself and that I was only picking up my younger brother the principal said to me “oh yeah right they’re all your little brothers aren’t they?”
Jesus was accused of breaking his Father’s Holy Sabbath, blasphemy, a drunkard, a glutton, even being demon possessed! Have you ever been falsely accused?
Have you ever been in severe pain?
I remember wrestling a match with my rotator cuff so badly ripped up I could barely feel my arm let alone wrestle (I won By the way) I remember when Anthony my son fell off the couch and split is forehead open and bled all over himself, the floor, the wall and me! He was in pain and I was in pain as a father holding my son trying to stop the bleeding!
I remember being heart broken when my grandfather died! You see my friend Jesus knows pain. Not just because of the crucifixion and believe me that was painful but he was scourged you know beaten severely. He was probably hungry and we know he was thirsty.
He was in pain, he was God, he was God in Pain, God suffering.
There is a story of a man who had a heavy machine fall on him pinching him in an awkward position for hours! He can’t lie down, he can’t work, he can’t sleep, he takes enough pain medicine to sedate an elephant and says his pain is always between an 8 and a 10 usually a 9!
Can you imagine? God can! Jesus understands pain he understands suffering he knows what you are going through he can relate to you. He knows what it feels like; he’s been there before he is your brother in suffering but only worse!
You see physical pain is one thing and dying, seeing death, any amount of pain, suffering, discomfort it’s all terrible and Jesus went through it all! BUT the bible says there is a second death and friends this is where God takes it a step further for you and for me. He felt that pain too. He died for you!
Go ahead and read Matt 26:38 and now Matt 10:28 will put this into perspective this is going through Hell for you! A separation from God for you! Sorrowful even onto death! In the Garden Jesus didn’t say “gee fellas I am sick can we rest up a bit” HIS SOUL WAS DYING!
This is something we can hardly understand he was separated in the second death so you don’t have to be! Isaiah says he was numbered with the transgressors… he stood in the sinners place to obtain a resurrection that is sure for you and me.
Satan with his fierce temptations wrung the heart of Jesus. The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father’s acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that Their separation was to be eternal. Christ felt the anguish which the sinner will feel when mercy shall no longer plead for the guilty race. It was the sense of sin, bringing the Father’s wrath upon Him as man’s substitute that made the cup He drank so bitter, and broke the heart of the Son of God. {DA 753.2}
It was to redeem us that Jesus lived and suffered and died. He became “a Man of Sorrows,” that we might be made partakers of everlasting joy. God permitted His beloved Son, full of grace and truth, to come from a world of indescribable glory, to a world marred and blighted with sin, darkened with the shadow of death and the curse. He permitted Him to leave the bosom of His love, the adoration of the angels, to suffer shame, insult, humiliation, hatred, and death. “The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5. Behold Him in the wilderness, in Gethsemane, upon the cross!
Behold him in the wilderness, in Gethsemane, and upon the cross
The Wilderness: as he wrestles the arch-tempter as he relies on a thus saith the Lord and a it is written.. See him weakened, see him tempted, see him hungry, and see him suffer! See him victorious!
In Gethsemane: looks to his friends for comfort and help but finds none. He asks can you not even for one hour moments before he was to be betrayed… see him kissed and betrayed, see him heal his captor’s ear, see him abandoned.
On the Cross: as he endures the most physical pain, as he is being mocked and jeered to save himself, experiencing the second death! Screaming my God my God why have you forsaken me and die!
See him writhe in pain, see him moan… see him speak great word of encouragement to John and Mary, and salvation to a thief! See him die!
Have you been misunderstood? Behold Jesus
Have you been rejected? Behold Jesus
Have you been falsely accused? Behold Jesus
Have you been in Pain? Behold Jesus
ARE YOU SUFFERING? BE HOLD JESUS
What is Jesus doing on the cross? Dying so you can live, being separated so you can be united (see Ephesians ch.1), he is naked so you can be clothed, pierced so you can be healed, mocked so that you can have dignity (read about a reformer), he is thirsty so you can be made full, he groans so that you can shout for joy, he is taken down so you can be lifted up, he is buried so that we can be resurrected…
BEHOLD THE CROSS! Where the Sufferer suffers to the point of success!
Hanging upon the Cross Christ was the Gospel!
Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. “With His stripes we are healed.” {DA 25.2}
Your suffering is just a window into salvation, his pain and suffering is your Passover and your pain and suffering is a light onto his Passion!
Your crucible illuminates his Crucifixion!
Are you Suffering? Come to Jesus
For an amazing Audio Experience on how to come to Jesus check out Steps to Christ
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