{"id":5153,"date":"2011-08-10T02:52:40","date_gmt":"2011-08-10T10:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wordpress\/?p=5153"},"modified":"2011-08-10T09:34:55","modified_gmt":"2011-08-10T17:34:55","slug":"the-holy-suffering-of-the-saint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=5153","title":{"rendered":"The Holy Suffering of the Saint"},"content":{"rendered":"

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August 10,\u00a02011<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good . . . \u20141 Peter 4:19<\/div>\n<\/h2>\n

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Choosing to suffer means that there must be something wrong with you, but choosing God\u2019s will\u2014 even if it means you will suffer\u2014 is something very different. No normal, healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he simply chooses God\u2019s will, just as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. And no saint should ever dare to interfere with the lesson of suffering being taught in another saint\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. But the people used to strengthen us are never those who sympathize with us; in fact, we are hindered by those who give us their sympathy, because sympathy only serves to weaken us. No one better understands a saint than the saint who is as close and as intimate with Jesus as possible. If we accept the sympathy of another saint, our spontaneous feeling is, \u201cGod is dealing too harshly with me and making my life too difficult.\u201d That is why Jesus said that self-pity was of the devil (see\u00a0Matthew 16:21-23<\/a>). We must be merciful to God\u2019s reputation. It is easy for us to tarnish God\u2019s character because He never argues back; He never tries to defend or vindicate Himself. Beware of thinking that Jesus needed sympathy during His life on earth. He refused the sympathy of people because in His great wisdom He knew that no one on earth understood His purpose (see\u00a0Matthew 16:23<\/a>). He accepted only the sympathy of His Father and the angels (see\u00a0Luke 15:10<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Look at God\u2019s incredible waste of His saints, according to the world\u2019s judgment. God seems to plant His saints in the most useless places. And then we say, \u201cGod intends for me to be here because I am so useful to Him.\u201d Yet Jesus never measured His life by how or where He was of the greatest use. God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and we are totally incapable of judging where that may be.<\/p>\n

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August 10, 2011<\/p>\n

Thank you Lord for many things; including changing me from the inside out. \u00a0And even though I often do not appreciate the difficult times while I am in them, I can look back and understand how you used a particular circumstance to help shape me. I can also understand how you might use difficult times to shape my brothers and sisters. And while it makes sense for me to love them while they are inside a tough time, I also understand that You must have Your perfect will and perfect timing; working through circumstances with believers. Lord help me to understand this and to praise you during these times, all the while not attempting to try and help myself or others escape the trials too early.<\/p>\n

And God says\u2026\u201dIf you recall, we have been on the best of speaking terms when you were in the most need. When you have been overwhelmed by difficulties that you could not control, you always turned to Me. You have been learning this lesson over and over and over, so that now turning your daily life over to Me is not an occasional thing, it has become a pattern of living for you. Had you been able to handle your day to day circumstances there would have been no motivation for you to turn to Me so frequently and with the highest degrees of intensity<\/em>. \u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August 10,\u00a02011 Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good . . . \u20141 Peter 4:19 Choosing to suffer means that there must be something wrong with you, but choosing God\u2019s will\u2014 even if it means you will suffer\u2014 is something very different. No normal, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5153"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5153"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5157,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5153\/revisions\/5157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}