Great article Refreshed! We are definitely in a time when people want their ears itched.

2 Timothy 4:3
The apostle Paul wrote a warning for the church: “The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3).


Saywhatagain, I don't know any true christian that seeks suffering. Jesus certainly never said to seek it. Who would do that unless they are crazy or think that seeking suffering would earn them something? Martin Luther, the reformation guy, did seek suffering, inflicted all kinds of pain on himself, before he came to understand that salvation was by grace alone. He thought he had to earn salvation by works and that's why he did that. That video Trapper put up several days ago, where they were lashing their own backs, I imagine that's what they were doing, trying to earn something from God by seeking suffering. No, we don't have to seek it. Jesus just promised it would come but told us to take heart, because he had overcome the world!

I don't agree that just because you can learn to rejoice in suffering, means you are not actually suffering. There are saints around the world that do rejoice in suffering, they praise God and preach the gospel to the world, despite their suffering, and they know that just as the scriptures say, their light and momentary affliction is preparing for them an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. But they are surely still suffering. When Paul wrote that about the light and momentary suffering, he was being beaten, sleep deprived, going without food, etc. He was truly suffering. But he was still rejoicing despite the great physical suffering. You aren't going to hear the Word of Faith teachers talk about that. And I think you get that point I'm making based on what you said, but you can't say there is no suffering when you are rejoicing because that's not correct. Paul and Jesus wouldn't have called it "suffering" if it wasn't suffering.

Joni Tada, who I have quoted a lot on here is a good example of someone who rejoices in suffering. But she has suffered not only paralysis for almost five decades and all the hardships that come with that alone, but she also suffers tremendous physical pain, which is somewhat rare for someone that is paralyzed because often they can't feel very much, but she does feel a lot of pain. But she loves God despite it all, and praises his name, and people are moved by her devotion to God and the gospel despite what she goes through on a daily basis. And she sure didn't seek out that suffering. She was just seventeen years old when she had the accident that caused her paralysis, a brand new christian that just wanted to have a fun day out with her friends at the lake. She wasn't seeking suffering. And she fought God for the first few years when she became paralyzed. And yes, this is when she was the most miserable of all because she could not see any good in what she was going through and thought God was treating her cruelly and she went to tons of Word of Faith preachers hoping for healing. But somewhere in there she learned to rejoice despite the suffering. And God has used her in amazing ways since then. But she still suffers daily and it's only gotten worse as she has aged, as her bones grow more and more brittle from the paralysis.

But believe me, I don't seek suffering either. You don't have to worry about that. And I don't think suffering earns me anything. Salvation is the free gift of God. But again, Jesus said the suffering would come, and it's not without purpose as all those scriptures showed.

And let me add one other point even though I know this is getting long. If one christian suffers more than another one, does that mean the one that suffers more is a worse sinner? No! The book of Job should totally rule out that thinking in our heads. Joni Tada is not a worse sinner than other christians that don't suffer as much as she does. And as I said above, Joni Tada, despite showing that her love for God and her service to God has only grown over all these years, her pain levels have also grown. We can't correlate the level of sin with the level of suffering. It doesn't work that way. Sure, sometimes sin does bring on more suffering, but sometimes suffering comes more and more and has nothing to do with sin. God has his purposes! He is sovereign. We can't understand all his ways. We just have to trust him!