Jesus was very secure in the knowledge that He was deeply loved by His heavenly Father. God the Father publicly declared His pleasure and love for His Son Jesus at His baptism. You might then question God as to why He allowed His Son to suffer, if the love He had for His Son was so deep. In Isaiah 53, it is revealed that, ‘The LORD says, “It was my will that he should suffer; his death was a sacrifice to bring forgiveness.” Jesus Himself was so devoted to His Father that in the garden of Gethsemane He said those famous words, ‘not my will be done but thy will be done.’ God allowed and willed His beloved Son to suffer the horror of the cross to enable us all to receive forgiveness.
Suffering as Christian’s
If by becoming a Christian it meant that you would never have to suffer, churches up and down the land would be full to the brim. When you take time to meditate on the life of Jesus and what He endured for us you cannot escape the fact that suffering is part of the Christian life. God loves us enough to allow us to suffer. Do we love God enough to endure what might come our way on the journey of life. Is there room in our theology for suffering.
The Purpose of Suffering for the Christian
We can see and understand the purpose of suffering in the life of Jesus when we read the Gospels. Jesus didn’t suffer because He’d done anything wrong but rather endured it for our wrong doing to reconcile us to God. Christian’s sometimes suffer because they disobey God either through ignorance of God’s will, personal weakness to various sins or sometime through deliberate disobedience of God’s revealed will. It is sometimes like twisting what Jesus said in the garden of Gethsemane by saying, ‘my will be done not God’s will be done.’
The Christian Life
Suffering is not something that a Christian seeks but rather embraces with the knowledge that God’s grace is sufficient in our weakness.