Spiritual Gifts part 63: Perfect obedience under intense suffering clinched the Angelic Conflict.

Pastor-Teacher
John Farley
Sunday,
December 19, 2010

Spiritual Gifts Part 63: Perfect obedience under intense suffering clinched the Angelic Conflict

The Doctrine of Adoption

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.

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.

Heb 2:18
For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.

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.

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.

So any of those messages that cause fear are not from God! As sons, our suffering is there for a very different purpose. We are in a new place.

As an unbeliever, we had only one place to retreat to when suffering set in - it was the house of fear.

We go to house of love - the palace that is the plan of God for His adult children - to make sense of the suffering that comes.

Our God assures us that even if things got so bad that a mother might forget her own child, even under those circumstances He will not abandon us, Isa 49:15-16.

When we are involved with suffering for the cause of Christ, the pain can drive us to have thoughts that are not right.

God is much more like the mother watching her son go through a difficult surgical procedure.

God’s people will have times of failure when they are suffering.

Suffering ceases to be suffering the moment it has a MEANING, Heb 12:2.

"When one’s expectations are reduced to zero," he said, "one really appreciates everything that one does have."