Strengthened by Hardship
This week marks the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Regardless of how one views him politically, it is impossible not to recognize that everything his political opponents did to try to derail his run for office only seemed to make him stronger. From the former president being tried by Congress as a private citizen, to a questionable law enforcement raid on his home near Mar-a-lago, FL, to rhetoric accusing him of fascism and Nazism, to two assassination attempts on his life, to multiple court cases affecting his ability to campaign for president, all seemed to roll off of him like the proverbial water off a duck’s back. Each apparent setback only seemed to increase his popularity and strengthen his case to be the next president of the United States.
In an unrelated, but similar manner, the Bible speaks of Christians facing trials and hardships, that, though intensely difficult and sometimes even physically harmful, are working to make us stronger and more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus never promised His followers a life of ease and prosperity. In fact, He warned his disciples that the opposite would actually be true. “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. (Mat 16:24) The word “cross” has a connotation of suffering, possibly leading to death. II Timothy 3:12 tells us, Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Why would a good God allow His children to be subjected to such troubling and hurtful circumstances?
The answer, found in Romans 8, tells us that all these things are for good. God, through the human author Apostle Paul, prefaces the well-known verse 28—And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose—with reminding his audience that we live in a sin-cursed and imperfect world that we long to be delivered from. In this context, then, he reminds us that all things, including what is in this tragic world, work for good for those who are called of God. Paul tells us that through God, we can overcome these things – (31) What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? What then are “all things?” He clarifies it later in the chapter. (35)Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…(37) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. These thoughts are expanded even further: (39) For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, (39) Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Knowing that God’s love for us is steadfast despite suffering the cruelty of a sinful world and society gives us peace and comfort, but what is the “good” that God is working “all things” toward in our lives?
It is surely not health or wealth, for that is not promised to us, nor shown in Scriptural examples. It is not the elimination of those trials. We must go back to verse 29 to see what good God is working through hardship. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. This “good” that God is working through the crucible of trials is that those who are “the called according to his purpose” are to be conformed, or molded, into the image of His dear Son. That is the ultimate good that we can ask for. The Bible tells us in many places that God is “well pleased” in His Son; what then, could bring Him greater pleasure than that His adopted children would have that same image? The image that man was created in, but that mankind has marred and twisted. There is no higher good than to be shaped once again, as we were meant to be, into the image of Christ, even if it be through difficult circumstances. This wonderful promise is meant for all who believe: Col 3:9-11 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; (10) And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: (11) Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. As we live this life in Christ, and go through the hardships that come from this world’s imperfections and sinful systems, let us endure them with grace, knowing that God is accomplishing a far greater purpose in our lives, not for our physical benefit, but for our eternal benefit.