Romans 8:17 NLT
[17] “And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.”

Has this verse ever troubled you?

I have often tried to understand and, just as often, dismissed what Paul wrote because it made no sense to me. What if God’s children, like me, have never had to face the terrible persecution for Jesus’ sake that many have endured over the centuries? Will we be disqualified from sharing in Jesus’ glory when He returns because we have not shared in His suffering?

A few months ago, I began a journey initiated and led by the Holy Spirit, that has been a game-changer. He led me, step by step, through a long process of revelation and reflection, to a satisfying answer to my perplexity.

Let me begin at the beginning.

One morning, during my daily study and prayer, the Holy Spirit dropped a Scripture verse into my mind that had nothing to do with my thinking that day.

Mark 6:34 NLT
[34] “Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.”

“Sheep without a shepherd?” What did He mean? In John’s gospel, chapter 10, Jesus made a distinction between the Good Shepherd and the hirelings who didn’t care about the sheep. Who were the hirelings? Since He was talking to the Pharisees who had just had a major quarrel with a blind man whom He had healed, it’s obvious that He was exposing the attitude of those “shepherds”, the religious leaders, for caring only about themselves, not loving or leading the sheep.

Jesus saw God’s people wandering aimlessly around with no one to guide them to the truth. He, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, understood their need and immediately stepped in to help them .

Again, His solution puzzled me. Why did He show His compassion for them by teaching them “many things”? How did teaching help them?

It has taken me weeks to understand and absorb what the Spirit has been revealing to me. I have had to think and rethink what the Scripture teaches to understand Jesus’ concern for His people.

My first clue to understanding why Jesus taught the people is in the fact that it is the knowledge of the truth that sets us free… from what? Yes…from sin and its power over us. Was this Jesus’ concern for the people?

To the Father, to Jesus, and to the Holy Spirit, the big issue is sin, because sin enslaves people and causes the chasm between God and humans.

John 8:34-36 NLT
[34] “Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin. [35] A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family forever. [36] So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.”

Did Jesus teach the people that He would be the solution to sin, that He had come to set them free from slavery to sin?

Over the next few days, my mind turned to what Jesus suffered to set us free from sin. The Holy Spirit, the superb teacher, using the Scriptures as His textbook, opened up verse after verse to build a picture of Jesus’ suffering. Since we will only share His glory if we suffer with Him, how imperative it us that we understand, first, what He suffered and then, how we suffer with Him.

The next two verses that came to mind were…

Isaiah 53:3 NLT
[3] “He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.”

And,

John 1:10-11 NLT
[10] “He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. [11] He came to his own people, and even they rejected him.”

Rejection! That’s it, I thought! Jesus suffered rejection, so then I asked, “What is rejection?”

My interlinear Hebrew/English Bible came to the rescue.

“Strong’s h2310

• Lexical: חָדֵל
• Transliteration: chadel
• Part of Speech: Adjective
• Phonetic Spelling: khaw-dale’
• Definition: forbearing, lacking.
• Origin: From chadal; vacant, i.e. Ceasing or destitute….”

Do you get the impact of that word? Vacant!

Jesus own people, the ones whom He loved and saved from slavery in Egypt, the ones He led, fed, and protected for forty years in the wilderness despite their unfaithfulness…these were the ones who rejected Him. He fought their battles with them and gave them “a land flowing with milk and honey”… the descendents of these people treated Him with disdain, contempt! They thought He was vacant, empty, unoccupied, nothing. They threw Him out like garbage, beat Him to pulp, spat in His face, nailed Him to a torture stake, thinking they were finally rid of Him and His words… So, His suffering was in His rejection.

But, wait a minute. Is there something more to His suffering than rejection and its outcomes? If not, then I am still disqualified from sharing His glory because I have never suffered or are ever likely to suffer as He did.

To be continued….