Why The Christian MUST Suffer

Having a conversation around suffering is not one that any of us want to have with one another, but it is the single common thread that spans the length of every single one of our stories. Suffering is not contained in the testimony of just a few, it is common to all. Suffering is not simply an evitability for the believer…

It is a necessity.

Even with the necessity of pain and suffering for the believer, God is still at work in our suffering for both His glory and our ultimate good. Let’s take a look at 5 of the biblical reasons for suffering while also seeing the God-centered hope in each.

1) Suffering is a consequence of the Fall of Man

Jump back to the very beginning of Scripture in Genesis. Adam is commanded to not eat of the tree (Gen 2:17) with the promise of death as a consequence – and yet he still sins. God is very clear in the discipline that He hands down to both man and all of humanity to come. Death is a consequence but so also is “pain, thorn, thistles and sweat.” (Gen 3:17-19) Suffering is the inescapable by-product of sin.

Where discipline abounds, Genesis 3 does not wrap up without hope. God gives a promise to the serpent that there was One coming who would crush the work of the serpent, even as His own heel was bruised. (Gen 3:15) This first Scriptural glimpse of the gospel gives man eternal hope through the sacrificial pain of our snake-crushing Savior.

2) Suffering builds faith

As I am on the doorstep of turning 40, I have begun to realize that any level of physical fitness comes through hard work and a little bit of physical pain. Muscle is built in stress, not by being sedentary. The parallel to the Christian life cannot be understated.

Faith does not grow in comfort and ease. In fact, easy living is the breeding ground for spiritual complacency because one feels no need to trust God for anything. Suffering peels back our illusion of being self-sufficient. That’s why the Christian should rejoice in our trials knowing that our faith will be tested as genuine (1 Pet 1:7) and that the child of God will be made complete through the suffering of this life. (Jas 1:4)

3) Suffering is a part of sanctification

To know Jesus fully is to not simply understand what Jesus did and said but we must also live and to speak as Jesus did. That means we love, serve, teach and even suffer that we may spend the course of our lives living as His disciples. Paul is such a clear picture of what this looks like. His urging to the Corinthian church (1 Cor 11:1) to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” undoubtedly includes suffering.

As Paul explains his heart to the Philippians church, “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”(Phil 3:10-11) To know both Jesus and His resurrection power means that His disciples must be well acquainted with the sufferings of Jesus.

4) Suffering comes because both the world and Satan hate you

Jesus came to proclaim the saving work of the Father – and the religious leaders had Him crucified for wielding such a gospel message. If that was the fate of the Savior of the world, what’s in store for me? As Jesus puts it in John 15:18, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” The world will hate us simply because of the Lord we serve.

It is not just a physical hatred and suffering that the Christian faces, but also of a spiritual nature as well. Satan’s singular goal is to “steal, kill and destroy” (John 10:10). As Peter warns the persecuted church that this suffering is not abnormal in 1 Peter 5:8-9, “ Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.” 

The enemy is at war with you because he is clinging to whatever turf he can. Stand strong. Know your aren’t alone. Be a beacon of hope in a pain-soaked, dark world.

5) Suffering gives you gospel opportunities

In recent years, I have come to see that my disability of being born without arms is one of my great gospel opportunities. My empty sleeves are very visible and then the moment that I use my feet to accomplish any daily task, people around me notice my situation very quickly. It is not long after that, people will begin to ask questions about my disability.  

I truly understand that the reason why people ask so many questions is that I am the only armless person that many have met. As we talk, people see a heavenly joy in the midst of difficult earthly circumstances and the whole situation does not make any worldly sense to them. It is in that moment that the conversation turns to the grace of God. I get to share about my God, “who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Cor 1:4)

That is true for all of us. We all have past and/or present suffering in the span of our testimony. Where there is present hurt, there’s a God providing comfort to the broken hearted and feeble knees. There is a Savior who bled and died to bring gospel hope and eternal life. Even where the groaning of this world reigns, there’s a great grace from a kind, suffering Servant.