Suffering and Persecution

What does suffering for Jesus mean? What does it entail? What is worth suffering, and to what degree? Why must Christians suffer at all?

“Loss and suffering, joyfully accepted for the kingdom of God, show the supremacy of God’s worth more clearly in the world than all worship and prayer.”

To answer the reason for suffering, one must first consider the question “what is a missionary’s primary goal?” This question could also be phrased to include every Christian, whether in full time vocational ministry or not. The driving passion behind any Christian’s life must be the revealing of God’s supreme glory. This zeal will carry him through any time of suffering.

Jesus commands that all Christians “take up [their] cross[es] and follow Him”—this means to “join [Him] on the Calvary road with a resolve to suffer and die with him.” Relegating this “cross-bearing” to mere physical afflictions such as annoying people and sick children removes the “radical thrust” from this command. Jesus’ idea of suffering was not the world’s idea of suffering—annoying people and sick children; rather, Jesus calls for obedience no matter the cost: betrayal, rejection, beating, mockery, crucifixion, or death. The apostle Paul realized and internalized Jesus’ idea of suffering when he said in Acts 20:24 speaking of bonds and afflictions that awaited him in every city, ‘But none of these things move me…’

“Jesus gives us the assurance that if we will follow him to Golgotha during all the Good Fridays of this life, we will also rise with him on the last Easter day of the resurrection.”

True suffering brings to mind martyrdom, both spiritual and physical death. A physical martyr is not killed because of his political standings, or because he has asked for death. He is martyred by the ones to whom he ministers, and this ministry is done out of a pursuit of love. A spiritual martyr is one who has truly been ‘crucified with Christ’ (Gal. 2:20) in order to say “nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me.”

Suffering must be born out of love. If one suffers with a proud attitude that says ‘look at me, I’m suffering for Jesus! I must be a super Christian,’ he is in sin. Pride is always a sin. Christ’s suffering was both a substitution for our sins (so we don’t have to pay the ultimate sacrifice of death in Hell) and a pattern for us.

“The suffering of Christ is a call for a certain mind-set toward suffering, namely, that it is normal and that the path of love and missions will often require it.”

This suffering of Christ is the “basis of our going with him” in suffering. We are commanded to minister ‘outside the camp’ where the unreached nations dwell. We are not protected from bodily harm outside the camp, but Jesus is with us!

Another aspect of personal suffering is the testimony it gives to other believers. When a believer (namely, a missionary; every believer should be a missionary!) suffers for Christ and responds in a Christlike manner, others take notice. Suffering should be accepted in faith and with joy. We are commanded to praise in every situation, even the difficult ones.

Sometimes we are tempted to think suffering (especially in death) is a loss for the kingdom of God. Else, how can the suffering/dead continue in their ministry for the Lord? Scripture gives us the proof of abiding suffering in John 12:24, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

“God uses the suffering of his missionaries to awaken others out of their slumbers of indifference and make them bold…What obedience will not achieve, persecution will.”

Just look at the persecuted church through out the ages! Even the first church in the NT had to undergo persecution to obey the Lord’s command to go throughout Judaea, Samaria, and the uttermost part of the world. It is amazing that the more money, affluence, and comfort is afforded to the church of God, the more they relax and ‘enjoy life’ instead of giving what they have to further the kingdom of Christ.

“The suffering of missionaries is meant by God to magnify the power and sufficiency of Christ. Suffering is finally to show the supremacy of God…Christ’s power was Paul’s only power when his sufferings brought him to the end of his resources and cast him wholly on Jesus.”
*all quotes taken from Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper


“Hold on my child, Joy comes in the morning.
Weeping only lasts for the night.
Hold on my child, Joy comes in the morning.
The darkest hour means God is just in sight.”