Suffering With Christ
What does it mean to you to suffer with Christ? If we are suffering but not obeying, following, trusting, turning to for comfort, strength and guidance and believing that from our suffering Christ will bring us closer to Himself we are just suffering. If we do not believe that from our suffering Christ will use it to benefit us above and beyond this worlds pain, then we are simply suffering. Where is our hope? How do we make it through our days?
Now, just because we face times of discouragement, fear, doubt and depression over circumstances does not mean we are not walking with Christ but only that we are doing so in a fallen and very difficult world. But these times of suffering that we face can propel us to seek Christ in a way we would not ordinarily do. Through our suffering we can come to learn all that we cannot do and that only Christ can do in us. When we are suffering with Christ we come to learn that we must seek our refuge, strength, and comfort in Christ each day. Yesterday’s victories do not sustain us through today’s trials, Christ does. His mercies for us are new every day. And every day we must look to Him and claim what He wants to give us. Every promise ever made to us is there for us as we look to Him. All He calls us to do is to believe. To believe every day, to turn to Him every day, to lean on Him every day and to give ourselves totally to Him; our doubts, fears, anxieties, anger, successes, all of it. To believe that everything we cannot do Jesus can, to believe that everything we can do is by the ability He gives us, to believe that no matter what we are facing Jesus has us close to Him and in His steadfast love and everlasing care. Without pain, disruption, trials, circumstances that push us to our edge, without these burdens and sufferings, we do not come to know Christ’s strength in and through us. We may know it in our heads, but we may not be living it, we may not be suffering with Christ. We may continue to be suffering in our own strength. How often do we seek relief from our circumstances and burdens through the things of this world and our own strength and self-sufficiency. How do we stand against and in the face of daily assaults and attacks from circumstances in our world and satan? Are we strong enough in our own resources to do so? Satan wants us to think so.
When Jesus calls us to follow Him, He wants all of us. Jesus wants all our pain, experiences, trials, and victories.He wants our total dependence to be on Him. Our Lord who knows our past, present and future. Our Lord who walks before us and with us. Our Lord who will use all for good in His time for us. He knows all of our times, He holds them and sustains us in and through them. This is our God who wants all of us.
There comes a time, different for each of us when we must ask: Am I really giving my life to Christ, am I giving every bit of myself to our Lord and Savior? Am I trusting Him totally with every aspect of my life? Is there anger I am holding on to, grief that feels as if it can swallow me whole, doubt that is paralyzing me, pride, and good works that I think are sustaining me, and the list goes on and on. Where is our relationship with Christ? How close are we really? Can my suffering awaken in me a reality that I am not close enough, that I need more, want more, and need to cry to Him to help my unbelief? Have I given Christ my suffering, and found the freedom in Him that He promises, the freedom, the rest, and peace. Am I suffering with Christ?
Let’s read today’s scripture in Luke 13:10-13 and 16, to seek God’s word for our life as we face suffering, disabling spirits and the times we feel bowed over from burdens and trials. “Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her,”Woman you are freed from your disability.” And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom satan bound for eighteen years be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?”
In today’s scripture we find a woman who has been bowed down for 18 years, bowed over unable to even stand up straight. Scripture also tells us this is not of her own doing, but satan had bound her. Now, you and I may not be physically bowed over but we all experience things that can and do bow us over, for example our sin, illness, sorrow, loss, etc., and satan stands ready to use each one against us and our relationship with Christ and with each other.
We find this woman worshiping in synagogue.Worshiping a God who she had probably asked many times to take her circumstance from her. Maybe she even cried out to HIm, why? So why did she return to worship? What happened between her and God that brought her back to the house of worship and to Him? Did she find herself sustained these 18 years in a way she could ot explain? Verse 16 tells us that she did not cause her circumstance and that it was satan that bound her. Did she, do we, have the power to fight the ways satan can bind us or is it God’s battle and His power through us that leads us on to persevere and gives us what we need each day to sustain us? Exodus 14:14 tells us, “The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.”
The woman in verse 16 is called the daughter of Abraham. She is the only person in the Bible to be called by that name. To be a child of Abraham in the Bible one had to believe, and their hearts were right with God. This woman, this daughter of Abraham was sustained 18 years by her belief, by her walk with God. Psalm 55:18 tells us, “He redeems my soul in safety from the battle that I wage.” Did this woman not wage a battle every day? God sustained her, met her deepest needs, walked with her, and then met her face to face in the synagogue and healed her.
Despite 18 years of being bound by satan with this physical burden, satan could not take her from God. We read that Jesus saw her, despite being bowed over amidst so many peoplein the congregation, the woman’s God saw her. He saw her as He sees each one of us. We are constantly before our God. Psalm 139:2-4 says, “You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
Jesus called the woman to Him and He immediately made her straight. When we come to Christ He makes us straight. He may not always change our circumstances at that moment but He does change us and strengthen us in Him so we can deal with our circumstances. As a daughter of Abraham this woman knew what it was to focus on Jesus and to keep her eyes upon God. Something happens at His feet when our focus is on Him and when we are with Him in His word. Jesus is growing us, He is growing our soul, He is growing our need for Him and our hunger for Him. In Jeremiah 32:40 God tells us, “I will never stop doing good to them.”
God’s help comes to us as we depend on Him and watch attentively for His blessings. As we read David’s thoughts in Psalm 121 he tells us our help comes from the Lord. It is the Lord that “keeps” us. David says, “I will lift my eyes to the hills, to the Lord.” We must look to our God who keeps us and watch for His blessings. In Exodus 20:24-26, God says to us, “In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you.” The woman in Luke, the woman who was bowed over, who spent 18 years looking down, was able through her belief in God to lift her eyes to the hills, to the Lord. She was able to sit at His feet and be blessed. This woman, this daughter of Abraham, like each of us who will give our lives to Christ was blessed and sustained by a power greater than herself until Christ healed her. A healing awaits each of us in His time, and a sustaining is ours until we are healed of every burden this world can throw at us. If it was not for our suffering, if it was not for being pushed beyond our ability to endure, we would never know the power, love and care of our Lord who carries us through it.
Maybe this bowed over woman unable to stand straight among all the worshipers in the synagogue knew intimately what Paul wrote in Acts 17:28, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” In following Jesus, in believeing, she gave herself to God, in so doing she suffered with Christ. As Jesus suffered, His eyes were on the Father, He gave His life to do the Father’s will. Jesus calls each of us to keep our eyes on Him, to give all our life to Him. We are called to trust Him with every aspect of our lives, our fears, dobuts, pain, suffering and through it all to follow and walk with our eyes on Him. We are called to suffer with Christ.
Just as the woman in the synagogue who praised Jesus, who knew her God, let us give thanks in the midst of our suffering. Let us look for His many blessings as we walk through our suffering. Let us give thanks that in Him is our home. Let us give thanks that He calls us closer to Him, as we walk with Him through each and every experience of our lives.
