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Lately, with my struggle with cancer, I have reconsidered some of my thoughts about suffering. It seemed to me that the biblical sense of “suffering” should be followed with the words “for Christ”. I surmised that if the suffering a person was enduring wasn’t “for Christ” then it wasn’t suffering as the bible described it. Perhaps it was just problems, trouble, or heartache…but not suffering for Christ.

Well, recently as I have looked at Paul’s descriptions of “suffering”, I see things on his list that I wouldn’t have put on my limited view of suffering for Christ. Near the end of II Corinthians 11 Paul begins listing ways that he suffered for Christ’s sake. Most of these made total sense to me because they were connected to persecution.

But some of these just seemed like being part of a planet that is cursed. Like one of his first ones is “working hard”. Is that suffering? How about “shipwrecked”? You can’t blame that on persecution. Then “spending a night and a day on the open sea”. Rivers and seas put him at danger and even bandits! My mind tried to embrace how these things could be considered “suffering for Christ.” The problem with my rationale was that the only “suffering” that was worthy to be called “suffering for the sake of Christ” was persecution.

I have friends that are persecuted around the world and I know that few of us have even come close to that in the U.S. So I needed to re-tool my thinking about suffering. Paul made it clear that suffering most definitely includes persecution, but it also includes anything that would slow the process of the expression of Christ’s life through us. We must be alert. We DO have an enemy that wants to thwart the progress of the Good News and keep us from impacting as many  lives as possible. That enemy will use any circumstance he can to slow us down. Sickness, weather, car troubles, other people, finances, etc. These all go under the heading of “suffering” because they can slow down the progress of the grace that we embody.

One of the dictionary definitions of suffering is “to sustain injury, disadvantage, or loss.” That’s exactly what the thief has come to do…to steal, kill, and destroy. Satan and his strategies come against us constantly to try to impede the progress of the Life of Christ in us. However, through adversity, we are more than conquerors because our Champion has come to give us Life and Life to the full! So we can join Paul in the next chapter and say, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” It is through the troubles of this life that we embrace our frailty and get the opportunity to express that the excellency of the power is from God and not from us. This is real life.

So at this point in our journey, I am becoming more aware that the things that come against us, our family, and ministry may not be persecution–but probably are suffering for Christ’s sake. These momentary troubles do not compare to the eternal business that Jesus has commissioned and empowered us to be about. Even when our ship has run ashore in the opposite direction from our intended destination, we are there to be expressors of the Living Christ. Ambassadors in a new territory. What a gift! What a life!

Is God a withholder or a rewarder? Sometimes we forget that He is good. That’s when we start thinking He’s a withholder. Like Adam and Eve thought God was holding out on them and not giving them the “full meal deal”. But He was trying to give them the best. Real LIFE! He is definitely a rewarder to those who diligently seek Him.

But lately, we have had to be cautious of our view of “reward”. Father has been telling us that reward has little to do with our comfort and lots more to do with the highest output of 0ur life (or even better…the highest output of HIS Life through us). The great reward is the greatest yield of a person’s life that can be had. This is where trust and dependence come in. We can’t produce the highest output for our lives by our own ability. And we certainly wouldn’t choose the “broken roads” that it takes to get there.

Even Jesus said, “let this cup pass from me”. No one wants to experience intensity, but sometimes that’s the road it takes to produce the highest redemptive output of our lives. “Not my will, but Thine be done” is the heart cry of those who diligently seek Him. Julie and I find it a hard thing to make our lips say it sometimes. But He is always good. Others may purpose things for evil, but He purposes things for good. Just like He has always said.

It would be hard to come up with a story like Joseph’s. Cruel brothers that sold him into slavery, falsely accused, prison convict, forgotten by others, then the greatest redemptive output of his life came to him. He ends up saving his own family and his whole nation by continuing to diligently seek His Father even through the intensity. So we’ve been praying, “not my will, but thine be done”.  “Have thine own way Lord. Have thine own way. Hold o’re my being absolute sway. Fill with Thy Spirit til all shall see Christ only always living in me.”

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The NIV has it challenges sometimes in translating verses. However, it does a grand job of translating Galatians 3:3, “Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?”  The words here, “human effort”, are from the Greek word SARX. Paul is asking the believers in Galatia, “Are you morons? Think about it…did you begin your walk with God by human effort? Did you start this all off by what YOU did, or was your walk with God started off by what GOD did? Was it the Spirit of God that began the work or YOU?”

Well obviously it was God. Right? No human effort can re-life a dead person. Only resurrection power can raise us from spiritual death. (see Eph. 1 and 2) Well then, Paul goes on to explain that it is by this same Spirit’s work that we live. We live the Christian life the same way we got into the Life. It’s by the Holy Spirit’s work. Trying to add anything to the work that only God can do is a sham.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if the NIV would have kept their definition of SARX from Galatians 3 (human effort) when the same word is used in Galatians 5?  Then Galatians 5:16-25 would read like this, “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of human effort. ¹⁷For human effort desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to human effort. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. ¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

 ¹⁹The acts of human effort are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

 ²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. ²⁴Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified human effort with its passions and desires. ²⁵Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”

Wow! What a shift happens in our minds when we realize the scope of this. As a matter of fact, the first illustration in Galatians is how Abraham was given a promise from God, but decided to try to create what God wanted by his own human effort. The whole struggle of the Christian walk is when we try to create what God desires by our own puny human effort. Notice that the first work (acts) of human effort in Galatians 5:19 was exactly what Abraham did to try to accomplish what God had already promised HE would do. Students of the scripture know the chaotic mess that ensued from Abraham’s petty attempts to do FOR God what God said HE would do. Our small attempts to do what God has promised to do Himself are clearly seen for what they are…disgusting acts of sin. Trying to manipulate our situation by creating a shortcut to the fulfillment of what God wants will only lead to chaos.

So…bottom line…our attempts to accomplish what God wants by our own energy and effort are weak. One of our mentors, Darrell Feemster, taught us over 25 years ago “What God requires OF you, He is IN you.” Human effort will always be at war with the work of the Spirit. And the work of the Spirit will always be at war with human effort. They will never be friends. To “keep in step with the Spirit” we must lay down our silly notion that WE can accomplish what God wants and bow our knees again in recognition that the only way we will accomplish what God wants is when He produces it in and through us. That’s Good News! It leaves us in a very dependent mode. We rely on Him alone.

Colossians 2:6 says, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him.” How did you receive Him? By grace (God did it), through faith (you received it), not of works (no human effort was involved). Then that’s the same way we live what God has planned for us. HE does it, WE receive it, and no human effort will get the job done.

Now don’t be mislead. You will sweat; you will labor; and you will work like never before. But it will be according to HIS working that works in you MIGHTILY! (Col. 1:29) Hallelujah!