“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” – 1 Peter 4:12-13 (ESV)
Suffering is no fun. But there is a suffering that comes to
every faith believer. It’s an unjust kind of suffering. All who truly follow Christ,
are recipients of accusations, slander, maligning, and unwarranted actions by others
who do not know Jesus as Savior and Lord. As we factually consider the causes
and actions and lay them out, our reaction typically is; “They have no right to
think or say that. We’ve done nothing to deserve this treatment. Yet it
happens. It’s just not fair!” Why do we react that way and cry out for fair dealing?
We do so because it’s easy to expect that our life of following Christ to be
free of such treatment – it should be easy. For a while in our western world we
have happily gone along with that assumption. However, our promise in 1 Peter
4:12 is that fiery trials will come and we shouldn’t be surprised when they do.
As the Apostle Peter wrote, we should not think “something strange” was
happening to us. Instead, if our suffering is a response from the world to our boldly
professing the name of Jesus as Lord and Savior, our reaction should be rejoicing.
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