No Pain No Gain

“Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus

shall suffer persecution.”

--2 Timothy 3:12

Heather refused to have sex with her boyfriend and as a result he ended up leaving her. She cried all night because she couldn’t understand why he would break up with her if he really loved her, she had been with him for over two years. Her friends criticized her and thought she should have just given in; they thought she considered herself to be better or something. Where were her friends when she needed them? Furthermore where was her blessing for doing the right thing, she thought. Why would God allow her to suffer?

Perhaps some of us are like Heather, who decided to stand for something right, but found ourselves suffering as a result. In those moments maybe we think like Heather and wonder why am I going through this and maybe I should have just given in or why should I continue to do the right thing? If we’ve ever asked any of these questions, hold on! Suffering is part of the plan. It’s part of the process we must go through in order to gain an even greater prize than what we see!

That’s why God took the time to remind us that we will suffer for His name sake when we live our lives before Him. He knew that we would grow weary at times and would want to throw in the towel when we can’t seem to make sense of why life seems to be so hard or why we aren’t getting what we want or even arriving at the places we want. God knowing this wanted us to know that our greatest testimony isn’t finding the best spouse, buying the big house, landing the opportune job, or gaining fame and notoriety, but it’s suffering for Him! What? Where’s the glory in that?

Well the glory is when someone sees that we can still persevere in the midst of hardships with a smile, that smile gives someone else the desire to know Jesus and what He did at Calvary. Because if we’re honest, nobody wants to go through this life alone, but so many of us do. We may have tons of people around us and still feel an emptiness that can only be filled by God. That’s right, we all want it, whether we admit it or not, we want to fill that void and it can only be filled by Christ. So while we all will face hardships, we can choose to do it alone or with Christ.

So what will it be? Well if we will all experience pain, why not suffer knowing that the pain we experience now is only for a greater gain later. God wants us be molded, strengthened, and encouraged by His word. Today let us know and remember pain for Christ’s sake will only result in gaining eternal life!