January 27: SUFFERING IN RIGHTEOUSNESS

For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. 1 Peter 2:19-20

Make a determination to keep learning. Nowhere in the Bible does God instruct His people to stop learning! The Holy Spirit led Peter to make the above statement because of his own experience. Peter suffered terribly because of his own faults, but he eventually recognized that the anguish he had suffered was of his own making. While that is a practical lesson to learn, recognize it as the launching pad into the privilege of suffering for the sake of righteousness. As God instructed us through Isaiah: “Learn to do good.” (Isaiah 1:17a)

There is an old saying attributed to John A. Shedd that says: “A ship in a harbor is safe. But that is not what ships are for.”

If you do not uncleat your own bowline that ties you to the dock, none of your peers will do it for you. God, in His unsearchable mercy, may use a storm to sever the bowline from the ship in order to send you out to sea. The depths of Himself that the Lord wants to teach you will not only grow your character more into His likeness, but will sharpen your discernment and open your eyes to needs around you. To your great surprise and delight, you will find that what you have learned is immediately available to share with someone who needs to know it also!

For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”, who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. 1 Peter 2:21-24

Jesus said, “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” John 13:17