..Affliction..

Why?

The first question many people ask when they hear this word or stories of people in other countries being persecuted. It’s not fun. or enjoyable. There will be people who think we’re weird. crazy. naive. are those things so bad though? NO! Why? Because it means that we are being “ambassadors for Christ'” desiring to be like him on this earth, knowing this is not our home!

YES – we will face afflictions and persecution – not always physically, but in any and everyway subtle and obvious that distracts us from being like Christ.

WHY do we have to face it? Because everything in this world is contrary to our God, Creator, Lover, Father, and Savior and his Name and Glory are at stake! It has NOTHING to do with us, and everything to do with Him!

HOPE – He does not leave us alone to face these things on our own! 2 Corinthians 1: 3-7:

³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all
comfort, ⁴who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. ⁵For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. ⁶If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. ⁷And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

Longing for more of Him,

Heidi

A Prayer

My heart keeps going back to this prayer from “Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ” by John Piper, a book I’ve been slowly working through because of the meat in it. This is from the chapter titled- The Incomparable Sufferings… read it keeping in mind all Christ suffered for your sake:

A P R A Y E R
Father, what can we say? We feel utterly unworthy in
the face of Christ’s unspeakable sufferings. We are
sorry. It was our sin that brought this to pass. It was
we who struck him and spit on him and mocked him.
O Father, we are so sorry. We bow ourselves to the dirt
and shut the mouths of our small, dark, petty, sinful
souls. O Father, touch us with fresh faith that we might
believe the incredible. The very pain of Christ that
makes us despair is our salvation. Open our fearful
hearts to receive the Gospel. Waken dead parts of our
hearts that cannot feel what must be felt—that we are
loved with the deepest, strongest, purest love in the
universe. Oh, grant us to have the power to comprehend
with all the saints the height and depth and length
and breadth of the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
and may we be filled with all the fullness of God.
Fight for us, O God, that we not drift numb and blind
and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Life is
too short, too precious, too painful to waste on
worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven is too great, hell is
too horrible, eternity is too long that we should putter
around on the porch of eternity. O God, open our eyes
to the vastness of the sufferings of Christ and what they
mean for sin and holiness and hope and heaven. We
fear our bent to trifling. Make us awake to the weight
of glory—the glory of Christ’s incomparable sufferings.
In his great and wonderful name, amen.

Kinda puts everything in perspective, huh? Yes, as you can see from my post on Monday, life isn’t always easy, but it is “…too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst.”

Heidi