16 The Spirit Himself [thus]
testifies together with our own spirit, assuring us that we are children of God.
17 And if we are His children, then we are His
heirs also: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ sharing His
inheritance with Him; only we must share His suffering if we are to
share His glory.
18 But what of that? For I consider that the
sufferings of this present time (this present life) are not worth being
compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us and for us
and conferred on us! (Romans 8:16-18 AMP)
******
As I read these three verses from Romans 8, I see what we understand as believers. We are sons and daughters of God. Parents and Bible teachers taught this to us from the point we understood words. (“Where does Jesus live?” our Sunday school teacher asked. We say, “He lives in our heart.”) We are taught God loves us so much that He let His Son, Jesus, come to earth to die a sacrifice we should have died so we can be with the Father in heaven. Abba God adopted us into His family. He knew from the beginning of time, before humans counted time, before He created us, that He wanted us to live with Him forever. He had a plan all the way from before He “knit us in our mothers’ wombs.”
In most societies, a child, whether biological or adopted, is an heir of the parent. Why would it be any less with the Father of all creation? Would the Father give less than humans? No, because the Father owns everything and has more to give. He chose to give us life. He chose to give us Himself. You may recall Jesus asked why we worry over clothes, food, or shelter. If He clothed the birds of the air and the fields of the earth so radiantly, how much more will He give to us.
As I have studied the Bible, I have come to understand with an even greater
depth what this means. Christ’s death and resurrection means He had power over
death but chose to go through the physical and mental pain of it. He chose this
for Himself because He loves us. Upon His ascension, He chose to give us
Himself. If we believe in Him, then His Spirit resides in
us. Now, get this right, this Spirit is not as our grandmothers and Sunday school
teachers taught us. He does not just
“live in my heart,” but He comes to replace the sin-influenced man within each of
us with Himself so we can live life as God intended at
the beginning of creation. This Spirit He puts within us guides, reminds, and teaches
us. We can choose to let Him have a small corner of our hearts with no more
influence over us than to say a prayer over a meal.
More completely, we can choose to grow and let Him take over a bigger part of
who we are so we become more like the person God created us to be. (How else
are we to love the Lord our
God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength?) If we do not grow and allow
the Spirit to grow us more like Christ, then the amount we love God is
miniscule. If we do allow the Spirit to grow us into a larger relationship with
God, then we are able to love Him with larger acts of devotion and obedience (for example,
teaching Sunday school or visiting home-bound people). As we grow, the part of
us the Spirit controls increases and the part we control decreases. As we
continue to read our Bible, study the Word, meditate on it, and act in obedience on what God
has told us, we decrease and the Holy Spirit in us,
Christ in us, increases. (Does this sound familiar?) Is this increase of Christlikeness
not what John the Baptist said concerning himself in relation to Jesus? (Read
John 3:30.)
As we become smaller, the external world sees more of what we are made of, Christ living in us. This may create friction with the people around who notice, but the Bible told us many times that people rejected Jesus so they would reject us. There are times people will accept us, rather, Christ will be accepted, the One we proclaim with our actions and words. These are times of glorious joy to the Father for His love poured out upon another. More often than not, though, we will be persecuted for living so boldly for God, for allowing the Holy Spirit in us to become our dominant characteristic, our reason for being. Why should this be, we may wonder. Why, when we are becoming more kind, loving, and generous, are we being more thwarted, disliked, and persecuted? Can they not see Jesus, who lives in us and other believers, is not here to take away the world but to offer them Life? Unfortunately, Satan has the world so thoroughly blinded that they misperceive God’s gift of Life as a death sentence. To them, if they accepted God, their fun would be taken away. I guess it could be construed in that manner, but this idea that accepting God’s gift of life removes fun is a ruse Satan perpetuates. The more we give ourselves to the Savior, the more we will experience the victory of His Life now and the greater will His influence be in our lives now. What can be seen as persecution by some people will come to be seen as acquiring the glory of heaven now because of being persecuted for Christ? We are considered so much identified with Christ that we are being persecuted just as our Savior. How can there be any greater identifier in this world besides our growth in Christ, than to be considered worthy to be persecuted for His sake, for the advancement of the Gospel? Is this not what Paul meant when he said to count it all joy? Is this not a taste of the glory of which the Bible told us is to come, there for the hope of glory? Remember glory is being with God, in His presence always. We walk this path with the Spirit of Christ growing in us more each day so Christ is seen in us. Christ in us is glory in itself, to be so connected and communing with Christ that we are not seen, but Christ in us. Yet, we continue on this path of growth, obedience, and relationship knowing an even greater glory awaits, the hope of glory, the hope of eternity with our Savior, with our Abba.
“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” (James 1:2-3, NASB). This is living the life of Jesus in the world, going through persecution and trials as He did. We do not count each cost but know that each trial and persecution makes us stronger in our relationship with God. The strengthening of our faith makes us stronger for the next trial which takes us another day closer to glory. These trials are not to death, but to strength, to fuller commune and identification with the Savior, so that we grow more and more into the image of Him (see Romans 8:29). Why should we think we would not have trials and persecution? Did not Jesus tell His disciples that because He had trials they would also? How do we think we could live this life as a Christian and not have trials then? This is sharing Christ’s suffering, carrying the cross as Paul says. (This life is what we modeled when we were baptized, being buried to our old life and being raised to new life.) Is this not a portion of glory we can experience now on earth? This closeness to Jesus is so near that we experience His presence completely because of the suffering. These sufferings grow us to be more like Jesus and draws us closer to Him. The sufferings we go through in this short time called life is nothing compared to the glory that is soon to be “revealed to us, in us, for us, and conferred on us” (Romans 8:18 AMP).
As we become smaller, the external world sees more of what we are made of, Christ living in us. This may create friction with the people around who notice, but the Bible told us many times that people rejected Jesus so they would reject us. There are times people will accept us, rather, Christ will be accepted, the One we proclaim with our actions and words. These are times of glorious joy to the Father for His love poured out upon another. More often than not, though, we will be persecuted for living so boldly for God, for allowing the Holy Spirit in us to become our dominant characteristic, our reason for being. Why should this be, we may wonder. Why, when we are becoming more kind, loving, and generous, are we being more thwarted, disliked, and persecuted? Can they not see Jesus, who lives in us and other believers, is not here to take away the world but to offer them Life? Unfortunately, Satan has the world so thoroughly blinded that they misperceive God’s gift of Life as a death sentence. To them, if they accepted God, their fun would be taken away. I guess it could be construed in that manner, but this idea that accepting God’s gift of life removes fun is a ruse Satan perpetuates. The more we give ourselves to the Savior, the more we will experience the victory of His Life now and the greater will His influence be in our lives now. What can be seen as persecution by some people will come to be seen as acquiring the glory of heaven now because of being persecuted for Christ? We are considered so much identified with Christ that we are being persecuted just as our Savior. How can there be any greater identifier in this world besides our growth in Christ, than to be considered worthy to be persecuted for His sake, for the advancement of the Gospel? Is this not what Paul meant when he said to count it all joy? Is this not a taste of the glory of which the Bible told us is to come, there for the hope of glory? Remember glory is being with God, in His presence always. We walk this path with the Spirit of Christ growing in us more each day so Christ is seen in us. Christ in us is glory in itself, to be so connected and communing with Christ that we are not seen, but Christ in us. Yet, we continue on this path of growth, obedience, and relationship knowing an even greater glory awaits, the hope of glory, the hope of eternity with our Savior, with our Abba.
“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” (James 1:2-3, NASB). This is living the life of Jesus in the world, going through persecution and trials as He did. We do not count each cost but know that each trial and persecution makes us stronger in our relationship with God. The strengthening of our faith makes us stronger for the next trial which takes us another day closer to glory. These trials are not to death, but to strength, to fuller commune and identification with the Savior, so that we grow more and more into the image of Him (see Romans 8:29). Why should we think we would not have trials and persecution? Did not Jesus tell His disciples that because He had trials they would also? How do we think we could live this life as a Christian and not have trials then? This is sharing Christ’s suffering, carrying the cross as Paul says. (This life is what we modeled when we were baptized, being buried to our old life and being raised to new life.) Is this not a portion of glory we can experience now on earth? This closeness to Jesus is so near that we experience His presence completely because of the suffering. These sufferings grow us to be more like Jesus and draws us closer to Him. The sufferings we go through in this short time called life is nothing compared to the glory that is soon to be “revealed to us, in us, for us, and conferred on us” (Romans 8:18 AMP).
Suffering and trials are nothing when compared to the glory we will receive when we have run this race and have grown more like Jesus.
Let us put a positive spin on this: why do we have
suffering? So we can grow more in the image of Jesus. What compels us to
continue our walk with Him? So we will decrease and He increase. So that the
whole world will know of the Father’s saving love, Finally, so we can have the
joy of His presence in our lives. Why are we heirs with Christ? Because God
loves us so much, He made a plan for us to be with Him forever, now in this
life and later in heaven. Is this not the most important part? God loves us so
much. What are a few trials and persecutions in light of spending eternity with
Jesus? Eternity actually began at the moment of our receiving Christ’s
salvation for ourselves? In the face of
trials, “count it all joy” that you know the reason; God loves you.
