"Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good..."— 1 Peter 4:19
Choosing to suffer means that there must be something wrong with you, but choosing God's will— even if it means you will suffer— is something very different. No normal, healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he simply chooses God's will, just as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. And no saint should ever dare to interfere with the lesson of suffering being taught in another saint's life.
The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. But the people use to strengthen us are never those who sympathize with us; in fact, we are hindered by those who give us their sympathy because sympathy only serves to weaken us. No one better understands a saint than the saint who is as close and as intimate with Jesus as possible. If we accept the sympathy of another saint, our spontaneous feeling is, :God is dealing too harshly with me and making my life too difficult." That is why Jesus said that self-pity was of the evil (see Matthew 16:21-23). We must be merciful to God's reputation. it is easy for us to tarnish God's character because He never argues back; He never tries to defend or vindicate Himself. Beware of thinking that Jesus needed sympathy during His life on earth. He refused the sympathy of people because in His great wisdom He knew that no one of earth understood His purpose (see Matthew 16:23). He accepted only the sympathy of His Father and the angels (see Luke 15:10).
Look at God's incredible waste of His saints, according to the world's judgment. God seems to plant His saints in the most useless places. And then we say, "God intends for me to be here because I am so useful to Him." Yet Jesus never measured His life by how or where He was of the greatest use. God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and we are totally incapable of judging where that may be.
http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php
2 comments:
Yet Jesus never measured His life by how or where He was of the greatest use. God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and we are totally incapable of judging where that may be.
I'm going to dwell on this for a few. haha.
You know... you never really think about these things until it's over, but I guess it comes where you have to know and you have to accept it for it to ever turn itself into the good thing that it's meant to be. It's growth. When you're a baby, you're going to cry and get mad and curse because you don't know what's going on, not yet. But when you grow older, you just take it and live it because you remember when you were a baby and you suffered and then look at how far you've come since then and you realize, finally, that this is what it takes to come even further. This is what it takes for others to come further. This is what it takes to be His. It's not about you anymore. It's about Him, it's about His body.
Oh my gosh, what you said to me on the phone last night about Jesus, calling out to God and not getting an answer because He couldn't.. skjdjfaj.. thank God for that.
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