Austin's Blog

One thing that is clear from all my travels overseas is that the church often struggles with a host and variety of crosses. The church is often on the ropes. Believers appear to have permanent passes on the struggle bus. This is at odds with the prevailing theology in the West—if God loves us and is pursuing our good, we can expect a life devoid of pain, sorrow, and suffering. Is this true? Scripture, church history, and experience all say a simple and flat “no.”

John Newton writes, “Believers are free from condemnation but not free from pain, sickness, poverty, losses, crosses, sudden trying changes, and what we call premature death. These trials give occasion for the exercise and manifestation of many graces which are not so visible in the sunshine of prosperity. Our trials are further sanctified, to wean the people of God more from the world, and to weaken the body of sin which still dwells in them.”

Are we greater than our Master? Jesus said bluntly in Matthew 10, “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.” If the Master had crosses, surely we do too. Suffering is a mark of discipleship, not an indication that something is wrong.

Samuel Rutherford notes, “We would either have a silent, a soft, a perfumed cross, sugared and honeyed with the consolations of Christ, or we faint; and providence must either brew a cup of gall and wormwood, mastered in the mixing with joy and songs, else we cannot be disciples. But Christ’s cross did not smile on him, his cross was a cross, and his ship sailed in blood, and his blessed soul was sea-sick, and heavy even to death.”

We will have tribulations (John 15:20; 16:33), and we will, indeed, walk through the fire as believers. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it. New Testament scholar Douglas Moo writes, “In every place and every era—albeit in quite different degrees—God’s people suffer, both from the general effects of a fallen world and from the specific hostility of Satan and those who oppose the gospel. There is no escape from ‘tribulation’ before we are ushered into God’s eternal kingdom.” The Bible is blunt and real. God says directly what we need to hear so we are well prepared for what life entails—even the Christian life.

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:12–13). If you are suffering under a heavy load of suffering, trials, and tribulations, you mustn’t assume you are doing something wrong, no matter what prosperity gospel preachers peddle these days. Believers are cross-bearing people. We live a cruciform life that ends with a crown.