In hindsight, many of us have much comfort knowing that the trials we endured and overcame as Christians were enabling us to identify with the sufferings of Jesus. There is a fellowship by association that comes with suffering. There is also tenderness and mercy which develop, when the heart is allowed to remain pliable under the Lord’s dealings. One who has known heartache and bereavement is more apt to sympathize, and want to be part of pain relief, rather than inflicting it. The resurrection life of Jesus which wells up within us when we have made Him Lord over our lives, accentuates the sensitivities toward the suffering of others. We are being conformed to His death, in dying to self, so that others may live 2 Corinthians 5: 18 – 20 says, “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the Word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God.”1 Peter 2: 20 says, “For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. For you have been called for this purpose,…
