Loving Jesus Because His Suffering Sustains Me

This past year I learned to love Jesus more by savoring the reality that Jesus really did suffer for me beyond what I could ever imagine. And that suffering will sustain me in my suffering. 

The 2020–2021 pandemic brought a kind of isolation that gave me new time to focus on Jesus. Though I was as busy or busier than ever in my daily schedule, the angst of the unknown ways COVID-19 might impact both my family and my ministry brought me new kinds of fears. Would any of my family members get COVID-19? How sick would they get? How hard would isolation be? In my ministry, would our revenue hold, would we still be able to recruit, would I have to lay people off? (I know you know these questions are much more frightening when experiencing them than they are writing them out.)

But in my daily private worship, where I honestly did wrestle with a kind of suffering, Jesus’ Spirit enlivened me through his Word, in new and fresh ways. As I suffered (more with the unknowns and how to honestly walk forward, trying to have faith in Jesus to make a way), Jesus gently but boldly brought to my consciousness a new level of grasping the intensity of his suffering, specifically for me, so that I could access God and his power and provision.

Two passages repeatedly pressed into me. The first:

Humble yourselves … under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you. Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you. …  Resist [the devil], firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little …, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, and strengthen you. (1 Peter 5:6–10, emphasis added)

And the second:

Three times I [Paul] besought the Lord about this [thorn in the flesh, i.e., Paul’s suffering], that it should leave me; but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:8–9)

Believers around the world are suffering – and in their suffering (far more than I’ve ever had to suffer) they are entering into Christ’s suffering (“for us all”; e.g., Hebrews 2:9). So, in whatever kind or level of suffering I experience, the Lord let me know that his suffering sustains me. I can cast my anxieties on him, and he will strengthen me. He will work in the midst of my weakness.

These realities overwhelmed me to love Jesus more!

Key Quotation

Jesus gently but boldly brought to my consciousness a new level of grasping the intensity of his suffering, specifically for me.

Byron Spradlin, Artists in Christian Testimony Intl