Spiritual Gifts part 62: The LORD has engraved you on the palms of His hands.

Pastor-Teacher
John Farley
Thursday,
December 16, 2010

Spiritual Gifts Part 62: The Lord has engraved you on the palms of His hands.

Biblical adoption is that grand design of God by which He confers or bestows upon us the status or the standing of adult sons and daughters.

As Christ suffered and entered into His glory (1PE 1:11), so fellow heirs with Christ are called to suffer during this present time (1PE 2:21, PHI 1:29) as we prepare to join Christ in glory.

1PE 2:21
For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps,

He came to understand through experience what it meant for a human being to constantly be obedient to the Father’s will, and that it meant dying daily.

He experienced just how difficult it is at times for human beings to submit to the will of the Father.

Out of the many experiences of suffering He underwent, He came to grasp the whole picture of what it means for a human being to remain in obedience to the Father’s plan.

Only a human being who has suffered in the same way can truly understand what the other person is experiencing.

There are times when, as members of the Family, we go through things so that later on we can be there for someone else in the family when they are going through the same thing.

These shared experiences of suffering help form permanent bonds of love and trust between members of the family.

As the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ possessed omniscience, all knowledge, for all of eternity.

Yet He becomes human, and has to learn what it means to be human. He has to learn this by EXPERIENCING it.

In the plan of God for His children, to suffer is to learn.

To suffer together, or on behalf of another, or to have another suffer on your behalf, is to form stronger bonds of love between two people.

Suffering is apt to stir up anxiety in your soul, and this can easily lead to fear.

But as long as I approach suffering with a soul filled with fear, I am not approaching suffering as a son!

1JO 4:18
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.