Humility & Suffering - 1 Peter 5

⁵ In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” ⁶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. ⁷ Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. ⁸ Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. ⁹ Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. ¹⁰ And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. ¹¹ To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.

A challenging bit of scripture for me, 1 Peter 5.

v6 "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time." This makes me remember how often Bill Johnson speaks about "we can only live to the measure we have died" and that "we have to go low to go high"... Like in Baptism, we die to ourselves, and are raised with Christ. As we are being transformed into his likeness, as our old self is dead, and we deny things of the flesh but choose what is holy... we carry our cross, and as we submit to his will he raises us up. How God chooses to withhold blessing from us, as he knows with blessing comes responsibility, and if the measure of blessing is beyond what we can handle, he will withhold it (so as not to lets us be ruined), but then as we grow in his likeness, as "we delight ourselves in the ways of the Lord, he gives us the desires of our heart" (Psalm 37:4, partially rewritten) he releases that blessing upon us.

v10 "And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast." Wow - does God want us to suffer? I personally don't think so... I think as he created a world based on love, which meant being based on the ability to choose (as love can only exist where there is choice - see earlier blog on suffering), and therefore there is a choice between something and something else, good and evil existed, and therefore if we choose God we naturally are at war with evil and therefore is against us... this is where suffering comes from. So we suffer as Christ did (although never to the same immense extent), knowing that we have chosen the side of good, and that in him we are strong, that he will be with us and never forsake us. To God be the glory, and power forever and ever. Amen.

I close out with 2 Corinthians 1:3-7
³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ⁵ For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. ⁶ If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. ⁷ And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.