Glorifying God in Suffering

My constant prayer is, “Lord, glorify/magnify Your Name through me today.”

But it is sobering to know that one of the ways God gets glory is through suffering. These are some recent developing thoughts on suffering for righteousness – right living.

[Noted: much of our suffering comes simply from the fact we live in a fallen world. Much also is the consequence of our own failure, poor decisions, or outright disobedience and failure to seek the Lord’s counsel. (Ps. 106:12-15; Prov. 16:25; 1 Cor. 11:30-32) In this suffering, God is glorified in our sincere confession and genuine repentance.]

I recently read in an introduction to Mark’s gospel: (God overturns Satan’s ‘seeming victory’ with His crowning victory at the cross.) “Mark’s readers are called to be faithful to Jesus, even in suffering, because this is how God continues to overturn the existing order and establish the way of life that Jesus taught.”

John 17:1 Jesus prayed, “Father, the hour (of suffering) has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.”

vs. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.

Suffering is an opportunity to glorify God and be made one with Christ (and Father/Holy Spirit) and fellow believers/sufferers.

Phil. 3:10-11 that I may know (oneness, intimacy) Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death (on the cross) in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.  (the hope of heaven is one of the greatest motivations for endurance/joy in the midst of suffering.)

Glorifying Him in suffering is a major way God uses for communicating/demonstrating the gospel to the world. (Look at the cross John 17:1)

Colossians 1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.

(filling up what is lacking referring NOT to atonement for sin, but in getting the Good News of His atonement out to the world. Our suffering gives ‘instant rapport’ to a suffering world)

Eg. Acts 5:41 So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name.

Drawing strength from Him, trusting in Him, praising Him, experiencing the joy of the Lord – in the midst of whatever kind of suffering, glorifies God and proclaims the gospel to all who see/hear of it.

God is glorified and pleased even if only He knows about it. What may seem like such a waste to me (being a poured out drink offering, the nameless and unknown sufferers of Heb. 11:35-40, the present persecuted church, those suffering with Alzheimer’s/dementia) can be a pleasing aroma/offering to God.

1 Corinthians 1:18 For the word of the cross (suffering) is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Eg.  man born blind from birth…not because of sin, but to glorify God. John 9:1

Romans 8:35-37 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

How should we then live?

Job 13:15 Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him…

Galatians 6:14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Romans 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

Hebrews 12:1-2 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race (with whatever suffering goes with that) that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross (with all the pain, rejection, dishonor, disrespect, humiliation, injustice, condescension/contempt), despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Prayer Application:

Mark 8:31-33 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.“

Pause before praying requests, asking “God, what are Your interests in this situation, what do You intend?” Too often we just jump right in and blurt out our sympathies, human interests/concerns without thinking of God’s.

Ecclesiastes 5:2 Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few.