Therefore, my dear brother, learn Christ and him crucified. Learn to pray to him an, despairing of yourself, say: “Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, but I am thy sin. Thou hast taken upon thyself what is mine and hast given to me what is thine. Thou has taken upon thyself what thou wast not and hast given to me what I was not.” Beware of aspiring to such purity that you will not wish to be looked upon as a sinner, or to be one. For Christ dwells only in sinners. On this account he descended from heaven, where he dwelt among the righteous, to dwell among sinners. Meditate on this love of his and you will see his sweet consolation. For why was it necessary for him to die if we can obtain a good conscience by our works and afflictions? Accordingly you will find peace only in him and only when you despair of yourself and your own works. Besides, you will learn from him that just as he has received you, so he has made your sins his own and has made his righteousness.
~ Martin Luther
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord…. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life…. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
~ from Romans 5 and 6
This entry is a little different… I just wrote a letter to a dear brother, and wanted to share it with you. This man has suffered intense loss through medical problems, marriage troubles, an alcoholic ex-wife, and an ongoing battle with despair.
Hi B——–,
Thank you so much for taking the time to reach out. I am honored that you would share so much with me.
Could I start with something here? What has happened in your life is tough. It is completely OK that this stuff hurts you deeply. The suffering we go through wears on us, and makes us begin to even doubt our thinking and our former commitments and sense of faith. If I can say nothing else, I tell you that you now have a brother in China who will be praying for all of this mess. There will be times where I will simply be sitting alongside you, praying and willing to listen… So, if you ever need to just share, or dump, or whatever – please feel free to reach out. We are brothers. I mean this.
As to suffering. Each of our troubles is different, and there is no competition. And what you have gone through is VERY tough… I can only say that I can have compassion, I can hurt alongside you. I was bedridden with chronic disease for a time some years ago. I also battled with autoimmune problems for a few years too, though nothing as difficult as Crones. I have been betrayed by family members in ways that I cannot even get into right now. Suffice it to say, that it nearly destroyed my life. I have lost everything financially through a bankruptcy in 2007. I have lost my family, my home, and my former career as an engineer in high tech. And, I still have 3 of my 4 grown children who will not have anything to do with me due to my own failures (in the past) with alcohol. And, on the mission field, there have been some times of emotional pain that go beyond words. Further, I am in the midst of battling significant chronic pain with a C6/C7 nerve injury from riding motorcycles in Indonesia, and also have extreme chronic pain with a stretched heel tendon in my left foot.
Now, NONE of the above is designed to lessen the sense of what you are going through. I only say the above, to say that you are not getting a note back from a guy who lives in an ivory tower. I am not some sort of philosophy professor who will just give you some sort of witty statements about how God is glorified in our suffering. No, rather, our sufferings are suffering. They hurt. They are wrong. They are not clean. They are part of the wretched, fallen, stinky broken system of a world and the sin we all fell into.
OK? Hopefully, that makes a start for the rest of this. Can I share some of the things that helped me get through? Just read it for what you can take from it… I am nobody. Just a Worldviews and Bible teacher at an international school in China. I am just a guy, working on entering into the rest HE has for us. I fail – a lot. In my flesh, I am impatient, prone to lust and anger, and willing to try and bring myself comfort – when I should be doing something else.
So, here goes…
1) What has happened to you is not your fault. You (and I) have probably done a lot of stupid things in our lives, but we do not “deserve” the disease and circumstantial problems we find ourselves in. We are forgiven. We are free. God is not a fickle and mean guy. All sin was put away at the cross. It is all paid for. Jesus sacrifice at the cross was either totally sufficient for all sin, or it was not. All of God’s wrath has been spent on the infinite sacrifice of His very own Son.
2) “God is not disillusioned with you. He never had any illusions in the first place. You have not disappointed Him. He is made of much stronger stuff.” Graham Cooke said this, and I love it.
3) Your sons Love you. There is no need to talk about Christ right now. They are watching you. You ARE Christ to them right now. How you continue down this very dark portion of the path God has set before you is very important. They are hurting, but they are looking to the dad who said all this stuff about Jesus in the past… what is it going to look like, now that things are getting really tough?
4) Sometimes the meds we take can have an impact on how we feel. Corticosteroids are often necessary for people with a situation like yours – and, they will mess with your feelings too. Fight this. And, do your best to get as much nutrition and vitamins, etc. into you – this always helps the battle. BTW, do probiotics help? What about things like astaxanthin? Astaxanthin is a powerful antioxidant and can help with inflammation.
5) You cannot be spiritually destroyed. It cannot happen. You don’t need to ask Christ into your heart again. HE is the One doing the saving. He has you. And as much as this sucks; as much as it hurts right now, remember one thing. Jesus is not far away. Jesus is going through this with you. He is feeling your pain with you. And, HE can take it, if you need to complain to Him. Pour yourself out to Him in your bed. Don’t ask Him to take it away, tell Him about how it makes you feel. Tell Him you want to hear His Voice on this.
6) A great question that I have learned to ask is this: “What does this mean for you and me Papa?” In other words, everything is about my relationship with God. Everything. Read this again. Everything is about how me (and you) and God are getting to know each other. As a counselor, Larry Crabb, has said: “Relationship is the final stuff of reality.” The circumstances are secondary – they will pass. Even if you have to endure another 40-50 years of this, they will pass. So, you just get back in the liar’s face and tell him: “You may take my body, but you will never separate me from God’s Love and my everlasting relationship with HIM.” Read Romans chapter 8 out loud at the devil, and tell him to get lost.
7) Now, here is the tough one. Your question. “Is this the suffering referred to in this verse (1 Peter 5:10, and Colossians 1)?” Yes, this is the suffering that Peter and Paul were talking about. As painful as it is, your life is a very fragrant offering to the eternal court of the ages. It is being watched by the prince of darkness, and he cringes. He knows that men like you are the most powerful people in all of history. Your life (and others like you) are the living sacrifice(s) that Paul talks about at the beginning of Romans 12. When we surrender our lives to Him, we do not get to negotiate the terms of how that sacrifice is measured out.
There is an upside to this though. Each person I have spoken too, who has utterly surrendered to Him and allowed the circumstance to simply be whatever it is, has found a new depth of intimacy with God that is profound… I am going to include a few blog entries about this (only read them when you want too… I have written over 800 articles, so I just kind of send out ones that seem like they might be helpful… Your life may never get “better” in physical and fleshly terms, but this stuff is so temporary – and the relationship we are building with Him is eternal. We are, even now, one with Jesus – and this will only grow forever.
http://blog.ps1611.org/2014/10/behind-grace-love-of-gd.html
http://blog.ps1611.org/2014/05/swimming-in-river-of-life.html
http://blog.ps1611.org/2014/12/learning-to-let-go-suffering-of.html
http://blog.ps1611.org/2016/01/letting-go-for-good.html
http://blog.ps1611.org/2015/02/a-beautiful-death-consecration.html
My own personal testimony about this is brutal. I lost everything, and have gotten very little of it back in earthly terms. I have been cast out across the planet and into the heat of the battle in the Great Commission. I would not trade my life for anything… and still, it is a life of deep pain and great sorrow… and, it is a life at peace. I quit trying to be something FOR God, and simply Let Him be everything in me and through me – including my suffering. What has come from this, though, is hard to describe. My life is powerful, and i get the opportunity to help some people I could have never even known, but for the years of intense suffering I went through. I now understand passages like the first part of Romans 6, Colossians 3:3 and Galatians 2:20. We have been crucified with Christ. This includes the pain… But the humiliation, and the years of obedience are not for nothing. We are going to be the royalty of a Kingdom which will have no end, and where pain is a very far distant memory (cf. the last part of Philippians 2).
And… I have become a friend of God. We are very dear friends. He is with me, and will never leave me nor forsake me. I have nearly died from my foolishness, and still He is with me. I would not trade this for anything… And if Jesus is not in heaven when I die, I care nothing for that place. If Jesus decides the flames of a tormenting hell are where He is going to dwell, then that is where I want to be – with Him. Because, I have now learned that it is not about place or circumstance. It is all about Jesus, and He is all I want.
Brother, you may have only begun to hurt, and it may get darker until it gets lighter. But, I am willing to go through this with you. And, I am utterly sure of the truth that Jesus is closer than your very breath. He is not going to leave us alone in this either…. So, may I offer my hand to yours? I will walk with you as far as you would like to go.
Courage brother. Dawn is coming.
Stay in touch. Write back, and let me know how you are doing.
