INTRODUCTION

You may be wondering if you read that correctly:  Successful Sufferer.  Who wants to be a Successful Sufferer?  We do!  As Christians, we are called to suffer.  You may have been told about all of the blessings that are a result of salvation.  While the promises are exciting, there are also blessings attached to suffering for Christ’s sake.  This 7-part series will prayerfully equip you to endure hardness as a good soldier (2 Timothy 2:3).

Webster’s Dictionary defines suffer as to endure or feel distress or pain; to sustain damage, injury, or loss.  If you are like me, you have experienced suffering in your lifetime.  I suffered the loss of my mother when I was 4 years old.  I would later suffer the losses of my grandmother, son, aunt, close friend, and cousins within a 2 1/2 year timespan.  In addition to losses from death, I have experienced the loss of friendships, abandonment, rejection, and neglect.  There is enough suffering in the world that we have all experienced a part of it.

Successful suffering does not mean that we will not cry and experience the depth of the pain.  However, successful suffering is being able to go through it, holding onto our faith in God, and strengthened in our relationship and resolve to serve Him when we come out of it.  Successful Sufferers knees may buckle, they may even be down for the count, but they do not quit.  They do not give up on God.  Successful Sufferers direct the glory to God for sustaining them, sharing their testimony with others.  Successful Sufferers are pruned in the process and are more like Christ when it is over.  Yes, we want to be Successful Sufferers! 

Continue this series with Part II Proper Perspective

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Copyright 2020 T.L. Lockley. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.