Suffering

 

“For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.”

—1 Peter 3:17

We “Christ’s-ones” who live in the United States still have more than a reasonable amount of freedom to practice our faith in spite of recent concerted efforts by a secular progressive society to marginalize devoted Christians.

From time to time, we may feel just a pinch of suffering. When we do, we need to remember the words of instruction from the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 3:17-22:

For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.

In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.

It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

Compared to many of our brothers and sisters around the world, we are called upon to suffer very little for our faith. When we do suffer the little bit that we may suffer, we need to remember Peter’s words.

More so, we need to greet this day with humility and pray for those who truly do suffer for their faith around the world.

 

_{Copyright © 2015 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

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