“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:1-5

We rejoice in our sufferings.

Pain will make you real. Pain will unmask all your facades. Pain will bring so much beauty out of you if you let Christ have His way. The way a surgeon removes cancerous cells from a patient is the way God strips us from our sin and molds us into a reflection of Himself.

I know the title probably through you off; it through me off too. I was reading the first blog post I wrote here It’s Saturday and Sunday is comin’ and these words I wrote then stopped me in my tracks, “Behold! Pain is beauty! Pain is to be celebrated! Who wouldn’t want to be alive in our Lord and to have God’s power?” Those words are from 6 years ago. I just read those words and asked myself, “Gisèle, do you still believe that pain is beauty?” It’s always one thing to write about something and it’s quite something else to live it out.

It is David who wrote the below:

“Before I was afflicted I went astray,
But now I keep Your word.
It is good for me that I was afflicted,
That I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:67, 71).

Would David have had the humility that he had, had he not been afflicted?

The Apostle Paul wrote the below in 2 Corinthians 11: 22-31

Suffering for Christ

“Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ?- I speak as a fool- I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness— besides the other  things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?
If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying”.

Only in Christianity will you see men and women wearing their weaknesses and scars proudly and unashamedly because we know who we are trusting for the salvation of our souls. While the people of the world are bragging about their material possessions, their social status, or what they look like, may we forever be known as people who brag about how weak we are and always in desperate need of our Savior.

You are not greater than your Master

As Christ followers, we have a Master and his name is Jesus.

“Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also” (John 15:20).

Jesus was the perfect man but a man nevertheless, and the Word says that He learned obedience through suffering. “Who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of external salvation to all who obey Him…” (Hebrews 5:7-9).

If the God-Man had to learn obedience through suffering, do we really think we will learn obedience through other means? How is gold purified? Isn’t it through fire?

“Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.” Isaiah 48:10 Behold! Pain is beauty! Pain is to be celebrated!

“The people of God rejoice not only in future glory but in present trials and sufferings, not because trials are pleasant but because they produce a step-by-step transformation that makes believers more like Christ.” Taken from the ESV® Study Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®)

“And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it—lest you even be found to fight against God.” And they agreed with him, and when they had called for the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ”. (Acts 5:38-42)

Afflictions and sufferings are God’s tools to make you holy, pure, and perfect. Every human being has an innate desire to lean on his or her own understanding. We are a people who love to depend on no one but ourselves. We attend to school and daily strive in hopes that one day we will be self-sufficient. But we have to understand that afflictions and sufferings wake us up to the reality that we are not self-sufficient. We realize that we are not as independent from people as we thought we were; because no one relies on their money or looks when they are in hospital and in need of the expertise of a doctor and the comfort and love of family. In pain, we learn humility and realize that we need others in order to go through life. Suffering destroys our self-reliance nature and creates a sweet aroma of humility in us.

Do you want to be more Christlike? If yes, God will use sufferings to mold you into the image of Christ. Do you want to be perfect? If yes, God will use pain to strip away all your sin.

Expect bruising

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities”. (Isaiah 53:10-11)

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him, He has put Him to grief.

What did you feel reading the above verse? I tried to write down what I felt and feel when reading that verse, but I can’t come up with words. God, there is truly no one like You. Your understanding indeed, no one can fathom and I am forever in sheer awe of You, Father. I am eternally thankful that You remember that my frame is of dust. Without Your sacrifice on the Cross, I would still be a beast towards You. Without Your cross, I would still be a stain-filled prodigal daughter.

“For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him; for those whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? . . . All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” (Hebrews 12:3–11)

God’s bruising and discipline teaches you obedience if indeed you are His sons and daughters. And Psalm 11 verse 5 says, “The Lord tests the righteous, but His soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.”

The way of the Cross

The premise of Christianity is dying to ourselves so that we can be alive to God. Is death anything pleasant? Death induces pain. Death is painful but it is such a beautiful thing to us as Christ followers.

It is through the dying to ourselves that we get to be in communion with our Savior. And our physical death also will bring us face to face with our Savior.

Let pain make you real. Let your cross bring you in communion with your Savior.

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” Psalm 116:15

Can you believe it now when I say that pain is beauty?

There is no way around taking up your cross as a Christ follower. You must take up your cross if you are ever to follow and know the Lord.

“Our uncrucified flesh will rob us of purity of heart, Christlikeness of character, spiritual insight, and fruitfulness. More than all, it will hide us from that vision of God’s face, that vision which has been the light of the earth and will be the completeness of heaven.” A.W Tozer

At the Cross I’ll abide
Isaiah Baltzell

O Jesus, Savior, I long to rest,
Near the cross where You have died;
For there is hope for the aching breast;
At the cross I will abide.

At the cross (At the cross) I’ll abide, (I’ll abide,)
At the cross (At the cross) I’ll abide, (I’ll abide,)
At the cross I’ll abide,
There His blood is applied
At the cross I am satisfied.

My dying Jesus, my Savior, God,
Who has borne my guilt and sin,
Now wash me, cleanse me with Your own blood,
Ever keep me pure and clean.

O Jesus, Savior, now make me Yours,
Never let me stray from You;
Oh, wash me, cleanse me, for You are mine,
And Your love is full and free.

The cleansing power of Your blood apply,
All my guilt and sin remove;
Oh, help me, while at Your cross I lie,
Fill my soul with perfect love.

Father God, the last thing my flesh wants to do is to die to itself, but Father, it pleased you to bruise Your only begotten Son to pay for the price of our sin, and since I am Your child, what a grace that it pleases You in the now to bruise me to teach me obedience. God, I never want to walk in shallowness with You. I forever desire to dive into the depths of who You are, to have communion with You, and to always, always see more of Your face. This is the narrow path that You taught about, so father, may I stop running away from pain; and may I always focus on the joy that is forever set before me: to please You, my God. In Jesus’ name I pray and I believe, Amen.