From creation and from Calvary, we know that God’s love comes gift-wrapped in suffering.
Nobody enjoys pain and no maturing Christian deliberately seeks pain. We’ve all met self-made martyrs who see every difficulty in everyday life, such as the common cold or even stubbing their toe, as suffering for the Lord. That attitude is repulsive and far removed from reality and truth. It is a very different and godly attitude to accept whatever God’s will sends or allows even if it includes pain and suffering. The Lord never allows pain without a purpose. We usually think: - Satan, sin, pain, suffering, sickness and of course, this is true. But I think it will help us if we realize that pain did not begin with Satan, and Adam was not the first one to suffer.
Join me in my time machine and we’ll travel a long way back in time. We arrive at our destination very, very early in the morning on the sixth day of creation. We hear voices and we know we are actually hearing a conversation of the 3 Almighty Persons of the Holy Trinity. We hide behind a huge rock and listen quietly to God’s plan, (Genesis 1:26, Genesis 1:31) to create humans. They are to be planned in love, designed in beauty and destined for glory. Then we hear something so shocking that it leaves us wordless and almost breathless. The Lord does not want automatic responses from humans. He wants an individual, personal, loving relationship with each one. So, He is going to - - (are we hearing right?) - - give them a free will. Knowing what we will do with our free will, knowing that we will break His heart, knowing that our free will means God will have to suffer and die (2 Corinthians 5:19) in order to accomplish His Sovereign Plan. Pain originated with God Himself and He was the first One to suffer. He willingly made a choice of love which would make deep pain the cost of love. As we get back in the time machine, just as we are leaving, we see a gigantic shadow of a cross.
As we trace the Divine strategy of Sovereign wisdom through the Scriptures and through the centuries, we discover many treasures of pain. Moses chose by obedience (Hebrews 11:25) to share the suffering of God’s people rather than enjoy the rich and temporary benefits of Egypt. As someone wisely said – Moses was really a somebody in Egypt but God took him (Exodus 2:15) to the Midian desert to make him a nobody, so that He could make him (Deuteronomy 34:10) truly a somebody. The painful humiliation purchased the treasure of exaltation. Joseph suffered deceitful mistreatment, slavery (Genesis 37:28, Genesis 39:20) and prison which God allowed. WHY? So that Joseph would be in the right place at the right time to save Egypt and Jacob’s entire family (Genesis 42:1-2, Genesis 47:25,27) from starvation during 7 years of famine. The pain paved the way for the treasure. Paul didn’t ask the Ephesian church (Ephesians 6:19) to pray that he would be released from prison or that his bruised and bleeding wrists and ankles, chafed by the shackles, would be healed. He wanted prayer that he would have courage and boldness to preach the Gospel. The pain made the opportunity for the treasure.
If you and I have personal pain let’s make it our personal call to pray for the Persecuted Church. Remember those in prison (Hebrews 13:3) as if you were there with them. As we pray for precious suffering beleivers we could be equipping ourselves for what very well could be coming. Much (though not all) of the Church in North America and Europe seems to be asleep. What will it take to awaken us? We know that Christians in labour camps and prisons undergo tortures designed in the cruel, vile heart of Satan; abuses we can’t begin to imagine rather than deny the Lord Jesus. Don’t let human sympathy distract you from the Holy Spirit’s intercession within you. Don’t pray for them as if they are only pathetic objects of pity. Pray for them as the victorious Church, that they will be singing the song of the soul set free, even while in prison. Pray that the power of God would so fill them that labour camps and prisons will be transformed into evangelistic centres. Pray for miracles - - that inadequate, bad food and insufficient water would supernaturally strengthen them with amazing endurance. Pray that they will hear the song of God as He (Zephaniah 3:17) joys over them with singing and they will sing God’s song and every note be a dagger in Satan’s heart as his own strategy works against him. Right now, through the Persecuted Church, Jesus is invading the kingdom of darkness, smashing through (Matthew 16:18) the gates of hell, binding (Luke 11:22) the strong man and taking his goods, the souls Satan thought were his forever, and translating them from the kingdom of darkness to the (Colossians 1:13) Kingdom of Light. Pray that the cruelest of the torturers will be overcome by the only weapon which can bring them to their knees in repentance. That is the love of God being radiated from the suffering saints. Which can pierce them as nothing else could. As Sauls become Pauls and persecutors join the persecuted, Jesus Christ continues to build His Church. Satan becomes a pawn, a tool in the hand of God to promote the building of His Church. Pray that everything about those beloved prisoners of the Lord would shout -- “J E S U S!” - -
We will be so honoured to meet these victorious saints in heaven and hear of the miracles which could not be told during earth-time. Right now, they are often sleep-deprived because of night hours of glaring bright lights and interrogation. Pray that God will make brief periods of exhausted sleep miraculously restoring. Their grief because of missing their families is raw loneliness. Their pain is beyond describing and their suffering is intense.
Pray: -
That God’s love will so flood their being that they will literally feel it enfolding them like a blanket, that when they are in the fiery furnace they will actually see the Son of God walking with them through the flames, that the Lord will send (Luke 22:43) angels in visible form from heaven to strengthen them and remind them (2 Corinthians 4:17) of the everlasting weight of eternal glory beyond all measure being achieved for them in heaven.
Part of that glory is when (Matthew 10:32, Luke 12:8) Jesus confesses them before God the Father and all the holy angels. They will be exalted before all the population of heaven.
Because the Lord loved us so much that He thought we were worth dying for - - - truly the Lamb that was slain (Revelation 13:8) is worthy of suffering and dying for.
God continues to answer Abraham’s prayer (Genesis 17:18,20) for Ishmael and more Muslims have come to Christ in recent years than ever before. Pray that our precious fellow believers may be enabled (Acts 5:41) to rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer as through them God is (Ephesians 3:10) manifesting His wisdom to the Principalities and powers right there in the pits of horror. Thousands of years later God is still answering Abraham’s prayer. Because God does not change (Malachi 3:6) just think of the confidence we can have as we seek ever-deepening oneness with the Lord so that our prayers for the Persecuted Church are the echo of the heart of God. Of course, this is true of all prayer that is in God’s will. We know from creation and from Calvary that God’s love comes gift-wrapped in suffering. This principle will be true for us as we allow God to demonstrate through us His love for the lost and needy. One day the gift wrap will come off and can you imagine what a glorious time we’ll have rejoicing over the priceless treasures?
God originated pain and that pain was for Himself and it was rooted in love. Satan cannot create, he can only pervert and he perverted pain to be rooted in cruelty and bitter hatred. Satan’s diabolical hatred for God is hugely demonstrated by his vicious, non-stop, attack program against Christians. BUT (John 16:11) this evil genius, the ruler and prince of the world system is judged and condemned and sentence is already passed upon him. The pain and suffering of this temporary world will give way to the health, victory and joy of eternal heaven.
Look! There it is again - - the gigantic shadow of the glorious cross.