“Therefore, as a fellow elder and witness to the sufferings of the Messiah and also a participant in the glory about to be revealed, I exhort the elders among you:” 1 Peter 5:1 HCSB
Peter is sharing about suffering in the end of chapter 4. Suffering will come and should not come out of sin, but out of being a Christian. So then here in chapter 5 Peter begins that He is also suffering. The people he is writing to may not be suffering yet, but wait it is coming. Peter is the one disciple that Jesus commissioned to feed His sheep, to strengthen the brotheren, and witnesses the unfair trail that Jesus faced. He has known the suffering. He has stayed in Jerusalem so that the Church home would be there but now He is talking to Christians who have left home towns and settled in other areas around the Roman Empire. They are the ones who will be taking Jesus to the farther reaches of the world. Peter is looking foward to the glory awaiting all believers and followers of Jesus. But is having to live out the suffering that faced Jesus.
Do we have the same resolve to stand for Jesus in the midst of suffering? Do we look forward to the Glory that awaits us in Christ? We cannot have the glory without the suffering!
Jesus suffered and he told his disciples that they too will suffer and they did. We too should expect to suffer. We may not have it as hard as some followers have it in China, Afghanistan, or any of the other countries where Christianity is illegal. But it is coming to America. The ACLU and other Atheist Groups have it on their agenda to make sure that we as Followers of Jesus have no rights and privileges to worship God.
Will you have the same resolve to follow Jesus through suffering that is coming. Strengthen your faith now while it is easy and hold on to it when it gets terribly hard.
““If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will also keep yours. But they will do all these things to you on account of My name, because they don’t know the One who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin. Now they have no excuse for their sin. The one who hates Me also hates My Father.”
John 15:18-23 HCSB
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