Suffering for Jesus: Honoring Him

One the hardest things to do when one is undergoing suffering is to honor Jesus in the process. Scripture clearly tells us in 1 Peter 3:14 that if a person suffers for Jesus' sake he will surely be blessed. How often do we think of suffering as being a blessing? Not very much. The reason we do not is because we have an identity crisis.

What do I mean by this? Before Jesus is Lord of our life, we are lord of our life. We essentially worship ourselves, our dreams, our visions, our hopes. However, when Jesus saves us, not only does he give us new life in Him, but he also reigns in us. This means that our old life passes away (along with our old allegiances). We now live for Jesus and not vice versa.

Many of the struggles that we face in this world are compounded by the faulty view that Christians are free to live for themselves now. No...a true believer in Jesus is called to be transformed and to orient his or or her life around the King.