Acts 2:44 "And all who believed were together and had all things in common."
My past two notes have been on suffering, and this one is kind of a continuatoin from my last entry but I feel like it needs to be said and then I will move on from suffering tomorrow. If you haven't read my past two notes I'll put the links on this entry.
Are God's Love and Christ's suffering separate from each other? I know that's kind of a weird question, but I was thinking about a lot yesterday when I was reading through the list of scriptures I listed last entry. I personally came to the conclusion that although they themselves are separate Christ's suffering is the physical manifestation of God's love. That is basically what John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." I was thinking about the first half of the verse "that he gave his only son," man that sounds like suffering to me.
I guess I just feel like we hype up God's love so much, which is awesome, but when we do that Christ's suffering kind of gets pushed under the rug. We in Romans 13:14 are called to "put on Christ Jesus" and later in Hebrews 5:9 it says "Although he was a son he learned obedience through what he suffered." Christ didn't just suffer he was mocked and completely humiliated. Hebrews 13:12 tells us that Jesus had to suffer outside the gates. He wasn't even crucified in the city, but instead they brought him outside to disgrace his name and crucify him with the filth of the earth. This is rough stuff, but at the same it's God's love and it's beautiful the end of that verse in Hebrews says he did this "to sanctify the people through his own blood."
God so loved the world he sent his son to die on the cross. His own son "Who, being in very nature God" (Philippians 2:6). Not only did he send him to die, but he sent him to redeem sinners. This verse in Romans has always blown my mind. Romans 5:8 "but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." God shows his love for us through suffering by offering his son as to cleanse us of our filth and sin. I know this is a basic concept of the gospel, but that verse always puts me in a state of awe. God loved us so much he sent his son to die for us even though I we are sinners. Just stop and think about that. No matter how often I am reminded of that it amazes me everytime.
I guess I've been writing all these notes on suffering, because these are things that were never really presented to me until I started studying the Bible myself. I always knew Jesus died for me, but those words are so watered down. Jesus suffered beyond anything that I could ever imagine. In Hebrews 2:9 it says "Jesus crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone." Jesus is crowned with glory because he died for us. He died so we don't have to. He died to set us free from sin. He died so we could have fellowship with God. Wow! Jesus' death and suffering makes him glorious.
And the kicker of all this is that we as Christians are called to imitate this humility. Tomorrow I'm planning on writing a note on humility and identity, but just think about that in Philippians Paul tells us that our attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ. Jesus humbly suffered all things so that we could have life. Now we are called to humbly suffer all things for the one who gave us life. This is love, and like it or not to me it really seems like it goes hand in hand with suffering and humility.
Something that I have been praying ever since I read through Philippians recently is that my life would look like Christ's. Paul says in chapter 1 "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain," and that verse struck me pretty hard. I feel likes it's for easy to me to see that dying is gain, because in death we are united with Christ and that's what it is all about. The first half of the verse really tripped me up though. For me to live doesn't really look like Christ most of the time, and that's why I've been writing these notes. God has been working in my life in Gainesville and my life is definitely changing in that direction, but first I had to come to accept the fact that suffering is a huge part of imitating Christ. I really hope and pray that in the near future I will be able to present to you all in this blog actual events of spreading the Gospel and living for Christ here in Gainesville. Anyways thanks for reading this,
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