 What is God trying to accomplish in our lives by suffering and even martyrdom? Why does God allow His children to suffer and even die as a martyr?
What is true
with the head,
is true
with the body.
If God would call us to share in Christ's glory, does it not make sense that He would also call us to suffer with Him.
 When we speak of martyrdom, we are speaking of a Christian losing his life because of his faith in Christ. He does not want to die. Others kill him. They commit a horrible violence against him. There are many other difficult things that Christians might need to face in this world, but if we can accept martyrdom as part of God's plan, then we can accept God's plan to use any difficult circumstance in our lives.
Revelation 6:9-11
And when He broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained;
10 and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, wilt Thou refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"
11 And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, should be completed also.
|
How is this connected to anxiety?
In order to accept God's plan for our lives we embrace these truths. If we are in the least unconfident of God's purpose and motives for our lives, then we will worry. We will hold back our trust from Him and put it in other things. His purpose for our lives is carefully exercised in His love. We can trust Him. We need not be anxious but even thankful that it includes these hardships.
Are we not moved when a person gives up his own body organs to save the life of another?! Wherever martyrdom takes place, other people have profited. The church has greatly increased in size and in devotion. Tertullian, an ancient church leader said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
So why does God allow afflictions happen? Perhaps we can get a final satisfactory answer from this model.
Would you ask your son to do something, but not ask it of others
Would you ask something of others, but not ask your son?
What about some dangerous mission or combat? What about dying? What about suffering?
Our conclusion from looking at the facts.
God allowed and even called His righteous and only begotten Son to die for sinners. Surely God would call His other children to suffer because He allowed His Son to suffer and die on the cross.
These are the facts. God allowed His children to suffer. But God also created a greater glory from every tragic scene most tragic scene.
Let's see how we are to overcome the fear of death. Next page
|
