Tag Archives: suffer

TAKE IT ON THE NOSE!

Bible Study, ,

TAKE IT ON THE NOSE!

If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or a thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel?

And, ‘If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?’

So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good. (1 Peter 4:15-19)

Suffering in this life is inevitable. It is unfortunately the lot of Adam’s descendants in a fallen world. Grief, pain, sickness, and loss are all part of the consequences of the ‘Pandora’s box’ released on the world by one man’s disobedience. No one, not even the best of us, escapes.

Suffering comes in many disguises and for many different reasons. Our bodies suffer disease and disabilities because the planet we live on is polluted; we abuse them with drugs, alcohol, gluttony, and sexual promiscuity; we overindulge in bitterness, hatred, rage, jealousy and unforgiveness. The cycle of sin and destruction continues from one generation to the next unless, through God’s grace, we stop the rot and turn the tide in our own lives and the lives of our descendants.

Make no mistake, you will suffer. No one is immune. But . . . Jesus said:

‘I have told you these things so that, in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.’ (John 16: 33)

‘If you suffer because of sin, you deserve it. You are getting what’s coming to you, so take it on the nose and don’t complain,’ said Peter. However, if you suffer for no fault of your own because you wear the name of Jesus, that’s a whole different ball game.

Something happens inside of us when we understand the purpose of the suffering we go through for no reason other than our allegiance and obedience to Jesus as our Lord. When we believed in Him, through the Holy Spirit we became fused to Him in a union so intimate that we became participants of His life. That means that His very nature became ours – the DNA of God was infused into us. A new disposition and mind-set became possible.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15: 5)

Peter’s instruction throughout this letter is clear: If your are suffering for your confession that Jesus is Lord, take it without retaliating. This is the way to stop the rot. Jesus showed us how it works. He suffered without reciprocating. Whatever they did to Him, however cruel and unjust their treatment of Him, He absorbed it into Himself. Instead of perpetuating it by threats or insults of His own, He remained serene and at peace inside Himself because He knew that it was not His fight.

This kind of attitude is liberating for the person who is at the receiving end. He changes the environment from revenge to forgiveness. He does not add his own sin to the ones who sin against him. He does not react; he responds with a different spirit and, by doing so, exposes the wickedness of those who mistreat him. How can he do this? By stepping back and leaving the vindication to the just Judge.

So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.

Consider this: From where do the insults and cruelty meted out against you originate? From your heart or the heart of the perpetrator? From the perpetrator, of course. He must own the guilt because whatever he says or does against you is a mirror of his own heart. If you say or do nothing to retaliate, you are acknowledging that the guilt is his, not yours. You can remain innocent and free from complicity with him if you receive the abuse without reacting.

By God’s grace you can change the environment and turn the tables on your persecutor by doing as Peter counselled:

So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide

BE PREPARED

Bible Study, ,

BE PREPARED

Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behaviour in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. (1 Peter 3: 13-16).

Wise counsel again from Peter! Be prepared.

Keep in mind the reason for his encouragement, that this group of people to which he was writing, believers in Jesus, most of whom were Jews, were the butt of Roman society’s animosity because they were misunderstood. They were part of a new cult, according to the pagans, which was not Jewish. They had tolerated the Jews but this group was spurned even by the Jews. Oh, they worshipped a Jew who was executed by the Romans and was said to have risen from the dead.  However even this phenomenon of resurrection was not new in their religious teachings, but it was their refusal to acknowledge Caesar as Lord, that got them into real trouble.

The pagan Romans and Greeks worshipped many gods, including the ancient character of Genesis, Nimrod, by his many pagan names and derivations. His evil wife, Semiramis had elevated to him to a god after he died. Semiramis also proclaimed herself to be a goddess – the Queen of Heaven. Her son, Tammuz, who was born after Nimrod’s death, whom she claimed was Nimrod’s son, conceived supernaturally after he died, was said to have risen from the dead after being killed by a wild beast in the forest.

Christians were accused of cannibalism because, during their love feasts they celebrated the death and resurrection of Jesus by ‘eating His flesh and drinking His blood.’ Although they were, in the main, model citizens, they kept to themselves for fear of persecution, and worshipped in secret. This kind of behaviour made them suspect, and spawned all kinds of false rumours about them.

Peter’s counsel was, ‘Don’t be afraid of them’ – a quote from Isaiah 8:12b. You have nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to fear from them. If you are living your life according to the standards of God’s kingdom, their malicious lies will have no substance. You will put them to shame by your respectful behaviour, your good deeds and by your courteous your response to their questions

Answer them when they question you. You have a very good reason for the hope in you that buoys you up and keeps you going in the face of hardships and unfair treatment. They don’t understand how you can do it? Tell them that is through God’s grace powerfully at work in you that you can put up with injustice without retaliating. You don’t only grin and bear it. You accept it joyfully because it gives you the privilege of suffering alongside your Master who suffered for you.

Jesus said that we must not fear the people who threaten to kill us. They can do no more than put our bodies to death. They cannot kill the indestructible soul within us which belongs to God. The one we are to fear, not be in dread of, but to reverence as Lord, is the one who has the power to destroy both body and soul in hell.

Peter encouraged these sufferers to focus on Jesus. This is the antidote to fear and to the temptation to resist or retaliate. If we keep on gazing at Jesus instead of allowing bitterness and resentment to fester inside, our spirits will remain calm as we draw strength from His suffering.  We remember that ‘He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.’

If Jesus trusted the Father and died trusting Him, can we not also trust Him when we are mistreated for His sake? If we keeping thinking about Him, what He did and what He said, and how He suffered, trusting the Father for justice, it will take the focus off ourselves and save us from suffering from PMS (Poor Me Syndrome!) PMS is the root cause of depression in many people, not chemical imbalances. Imbalances are often the result, not the cause of depression.

There is nothing more medicinal and uplifting than a grateful heart. Gratitude for what Jesus did for you will lift you out of the pits of despair because what He did gives you access into the fullness of His life, His favour and His blessing.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

 

 

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – WHO ARE THE REAL DANGER?

Bible Study, ,

WHO ARE THE REAL DANGER?

27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”
28 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”
29 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”
30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” Mark 8:27-38

This incident and its repercussions have opened up to us at least a part of the reason that Christians are the greatest danger and hindrance to the coming of the kingdom of God. Against the backdrop of Caesarea Philippi, representing the way people think and behave when they reject the “tree of life” and eat the fruit of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”, Jesus asked His disciples the most crucial question they would ever have to answer. “Who do you say that I am?”

Peter’s response was, in essence, absolutely correct but, as he later revealed, its content was way off the mark. It’s the content of that confession that validates or invalidates our confession. From Peter’s declaration, Jesus launched into a revelation of the Father’s agenda for Him, exposing Peter’s contradicting the content of the confession he had just made.

True discipleship not only embraces Jesus’ essence and nature as the Son of God. It also fully embraces the implications of that confession both for Jesus and for himself.

Peter refused to embrace Jesus’ yoke – the unconditional love of God that endures humiliation, disgrace, rejection and ridicule in order to overcome the worst man can do, through compassion and forgiveness. He still espoused violence, force and control as the way of victory. He was embarrassed by Jesus’ revelation of suffering and death as the way of overcoming the world. Jesus repudiated that way as the way of Satan.

God’s love is all-inclusive and all-embracing. He opens His arms to anyone who will repent and return (tefilah, teshuvah). By contrast, Jesus said that discipleship is all-exclusive. He is embarrassed by and repudiates anyone who refuses His yoke and chooses to continue on under the devil’s yoke. Such a person is “anti-Christ”, constituting a danger to the growth of God’s kingdom because he misrepresents his Messiah and brings the spirit of the world into the church, and the name of Jesus into disrepute.82

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – NOT ROME BUT RELIGION

Bible Study, , ,

NOT ROME BUT RELIGION

31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” Mark 8:31-33

This incident shows us how influential Peter was in this group of disciples. He vocalised and the rest of the disciples tended to follow what he said. At this point in his life, where he was unstable in his thinking and still vulnerable to deception, he was a dangerous man in the group and needed to be tamed and brought to heel by Jesus before He could risk allowing him out into the world with his power to influence and persuade. He was a valuable ally but a dangerous enemy.

Jesus was never afraid to offend people as long as it exposed what was on the inside. Peter must have smarted under Jesus’ rebuke. We can imagine him withdrawing from the group, humiliated and angry. He knew Jesus was right but he resented the exposure in front of the other disciples.

It was necessary for Jesus to correct Peter’s wrong thinking and to douse his influence over the other disciples. He could see that they were wavering and He jumped in to put that fire out before it spread. He had introduced them to the necessity of His suffering and death and nothing must detract from the centrality of that because it was the heart of His victory, not over Rome but over sin and death. Rome still had a part to play in helping to form His church through suffering and, ultimately Rome was not the issue.

The greatest threat to Jesus’ mission was not Rome but religion. It was religion that would crucify Him and His victory over religion would be the final victory over the devil because the devil’s most deceptive disguise is religion. People will kill to protect their religious beliefs because religion influences every part of their lives. The Jewish leaders hated Him because He exposed the emptiness and hypocrisy of their religious system.

Religion is power because it holds people in slavery. Satan wields his power through religion and through religious leaders. It is his favourite disguise to keep people enslaved by fear.

Dead Wrong, Devil

Bible Study, , ,

DEAD WRONG, DEVIL

Then He began to explain to them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that He must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But when Jesus turned and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ He said. ‘You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns’. (Mark 8: 31-33).

Strange, isn’t it, how a person can be so right and yet so dead wrong at the same time! Peter got it right when he confessed Jesus to be the Messiah but, in the very next breath he cancelled his confession with his foolish rebuke.

It was important for the disciples to understand the full extent of who and what the Messiah was. The Old Testament presented two streams of prophecy. Messiah would be both king and servant. What the disciples recognised in Jesus was His power and authority; they had no problem believing that He could overthrow the Roman occupation and set up His rule over David’s realm. They believed it and they wanted to believe it because they ached for the time when the Romans would be thrown out of their land once and for all.

They were so consumed by this expectation that anything Jesus said to the contrary went in one ear and out the other. After all, the very announcement that kicked off His public ministry had to do with the coming of God’s kingdom. They were commissioned to preach it and to demonstrate it by doing the same miracles He did.

What was this talk about being killed and rising again? The other stream in the Messianic prophecies that He would also be the Ebed Yahweh – the Servant of Yahweh – an office which included suffering, they dismissed without giving it a thought. They wanted and needed a powerful ruler to get rid of Rome – bottom line.

They did not understand that God’s agenda was very different from theirs. They were looking for a restoration of the greatness of David’s reign and a return to the comfort of their temporal circumstances. God was about dealing with a far more serious and sinister issue, sin and the alienation from Himself that it had caused. His kingdom was not about geographical boundaries and earthly kings but about restoring the righteousness in their hearts and lives by transforming them from within.

Why did Jesus call Peter Satan? Actually, He didn’t. He addressed the real but unwitting source of Peter’s rebuke. Just as Peter was open to the influence of God and accurately identified Jesus as the Messiah by divine inspiration, so he was equally open to the devil’s lies. He revealed his erroneous expectation of who Messiah really was by opening his mouth and blurting out his rebuke.

Jesus addressed the devil as though he were there in the flesh. “This time, Peter, it’s not God speaking through you but the devil and what he said is nothing but a distractor and I will have none of it.” At that moment, Peter was acting in the flesh. He had no understanding of God’s mind. It would take time and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit for Peter to learn to view life from God’s perspective.

Jesus tried hard to prepare His disciples for His passion so that they would not be thrown into disarray when it happened. But so strong was their desire and their expectation that Messiah would deal, not with sin but with Rome that all His efforts fell on deaf ears. Even His strong rebuke did not help to get His message across. He told them the same thing time and again but when the time came, and He was arrested, tried and nailed to a cross, they still didn’t get it.

It seems that Judas even tried to force His hand by betraying Him to the Jewish authorities, which proved all the more that Rome was not on His agenda. Rather than showing His hand as Judas expected and acting against Rome, He submitted to the cross and He rose from the dead, just as He said He would. Only then and finally, after Pentecost, did the penny drop and everything He said fall into place.

We are really no different, aren’t we? Our expectations of Jesus centre so much on our creature comforts that we turn away in disappointment and disillusionment when Jesus does not meet our expectations. God is less interested in our comfort than our character. It is sin that He deals with, not circumstances. His promise is that He will transform us into the image of His Son, so matter what it takes. In the end, we decide how tough it will be by our response to His training.

As one mom said to her son when he resisted going to bed, “You can go easy or you can go hard, but you are going to bed anyway!”

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my Blog site – www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com