Title: Suffering and Blessings
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Bible: 1 Peter 2:18-25
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1 Peter 2:19 “It is a beautiful thing if you endure your sorrow because you are thinking of God when you suffer ambiguous afflictions in your life.” This is what we read today. “It is beautiful if you endure sorrow by thinking of God even when you suffer vaguely.” At this time, the word ‘beautiful’ is used here in the Greek word ‘charis’. Charis means grace. That is why, when we suffer unfairly and suffer vaguely, God will reward us with grace and blessings if we look to God and endure well.
Then in verse 21, it says, “Jesus set an example for us by suffering like this. That's why he chose us to follow the example Jesus set." So, today's Bible tells us that when we live as children of God, we are bound to suffer injustice and ambiguous suffering just like Jesus.
According to the Bible, there were no seniors of faith who did not suffer unfair and ambiguous sufferings. The Bible says that many ancestors of faith suffered unfair and ambiguous sufferings. Abraham also took his nephew Lot, as he was a nephew without a father, so he took him around like a father. So Abraham took his nephew Lot with him from Ur to Haran in the Chaldeans, from Haran to Canaan, from Canaan to Egypt, and from Egypt to Canaan again. However, in Genesis 13, Abraham's flocks and herds increased, and as the number of cattle and sheep of his nephew Lot increased, the divisions naturally occurred. My uncle chooses a good land first, and since I am still young, I will choose that land and go to it even if it is a little difficult.” Isn't this normal? However, because his nephew Lot did not do this and first chose the good land that he could see, the land of Sodom, Abraham chose the opposite, Bakto and Hebron, a very difficult land. Abraham must have been a little sad that day. You may have thought, ‘I brought up this child, and this child doesn’t even know grace’.
When we face ambiguous or unreasonable suffering, we ask, “Where is God?” You may scream. However, when you are in trouble, you can feel the fact that the Lord is right here, take up the cross and praise God with you. Today's Bible promises, "When you suffer vaguely, because you think of God, you think of the cross, and because you think that the Lord is with you, if you overcome your sorrow, God will repay you with grace and blessing." We must always remember that the Lord is with us. Another is that we should look to God in the midst of suffering. Like Stephen, when you are stoned to death, you lift your head up and look to the Lord. It is not looking at ‘rocks’ flying by raising your head, but looking at ‘our Lord’ who is raising your head and looking at us from the sky. So, we believe that we should become saints who approach God with the face of an angel. There may be hardships in our lives, but I pray in the name of the Lord that you will become saints who overcome hardships with God.
2011-09-30 11:33:42